Buying development rights

When Roger Pilon of the libertarian Cato Institute was speaking in Maine last week, he reduced his philosophy on property rights to a couple of terse sentences that reflect the thoughts of many in northern Maine: “Stop stealng our property. Pay for it.” He couldn’t have known that the biggest deal in the nation to do exactly that was being completed nearby.

The deal that will sell development rights to 754,673 acres of Pingree family land to the New England Forestry Foundation of Groton, Mass., for $30 million is a hard-cash proposition. Like the neighboring purchase by The Nature Conservancy in December, the Pingree deal is a model for respecting land ownership, directing development and steering legislative debate over public lands.

Some people might wonder why anyone would be concerned with development on the Pingree land. The family has been in the timber business for generations, shows every sign of continuing for many more and is well-known for practicing sustainable forestry, a condition of the sale. David Field, a professor of forestry at the University of Maine and a strong supporter of development-right purchases, points out that what is actually being sold is a guarantee — one that ensures no development will occur on the land in the future. Think of it as insurance; healthy people buy it not because they are expecting to get sick but because they know getting sick is an expensive possibility.

This is the sort of guarantee that Maine should be looking at in its purchases of public lands, and one that should please Mr. Pilon and other property-rights advocates. Rather than limiting development through legislation, the state is preparing to buy land, or land rights, from willing sellers. Even better, the money to do this probably will arrive only as the result of popular support of a referendum in November.

The purchases by the foundation and TNC, however, more than ever should shift the view of Maine lawmakers from the northern woods to the coast and southern Maine, where development pressures aren’t a future theory but a current reality. Much is made of Maine’s low percentage of public-land ownership, but the state also holds the distinction among seaboard states for owning the lowest percentage of coastline in the nation. If supporters of a national park are sincere in their belief that the state will benefit from tourism at such a park, doesn’t it make more sense to put it in a place where lots of people want to visit?

The Forestry Foundation, according to news reports, is still looking for sources of funding for the deal, but assuming it contacts just the people in southern New England who have been on high alert for years because northern Maine hasn’t been turned into a national park, it should be able to find the money and more. And even though buying development rights is a terrific way to protect Maine’s forests, one funding source it should not look at is the state of Maine — letting an out-of-state group determine which land Maine should invest in could become a bad habit.

Nevertheless, the deal is great news for Maine, a fine example of the forward-thinking attitude of the Pingree family and an example for the public as it considers other land purchases.