West Branch Project

Most of Maine’s political leaders are touting the state’s new West Branch Project as a model for conservation. While Phase One has some positive aspects, including full land purchases on Big Spencer Mountain and shoreline on Moosehead Lake, Phase Two provides almost no ecological protection or public benefits except to line the pockets of a few large landowners.

Phase Two consists of conservation easements on about 600,000 acres of timberland north of Moosehead Lake and west of Baxter State Park. These easements will provide yet another tax break to lands that already have one (see the tree growth tax law), and provide public access to lands already open to the public. While protection from development is touted as the main advantage of these easements, most all development threats in the north woods center on bodies of water, many of which are already protected by the Land Use Regulation Commission’s remote pond classification. If the state is worried about development threats, why not just place shoreline easements around the lakes and ponds, such as those already in place around Lobster Lake and the West Branch? Most of the land in Phase Two is timberland, which needs protection from over-cutting and spraying, not second home development. David Lewis Orono

The West Branch Project is not a great conservation initiative as advocates of the plan have claimed. The project and similar conservation easements throughout the north woods represent the latest attempts by Gov. Angus King and his associates in the forest products industry to make an end-run around conservation initiatives promoted by Maine citizens interested in assuring the sustainable use of their forests.

Gov. King and industry leaders are hoping to distract the public from the real source of destruction in the north woods by raising the artificial specter of subdivision and development in Maine’s northern forests. Our forests aren’t in danger of being sub-divided, however, they are in jeopardy due to overcutting and unsustainable forest management practices perpetrated by the corporations in control of Maine’s timber industry.

The advocates of the West Branch Project realize they are responsible for the abysmal condition of much of Maine’s northern forestland and are beginning to realize that public outcry over their poor stewardship of the woods will not simply go away. The designers of the West Branch Project are simply hoping to appease the public by putting a good face on bad forestry as they lock-in access to the north woods for the future. The project will not stop the unsustainable clear-cutting and over-harvesting that is characteristic of timber management in Maine’s northern forests, only public outcry and regulation can really save our woodlands. However, Gov. King and industry leaders, the designers of this plan, think they can fool the public into giving up the chance to regulate the timber industry simply by drawing green “easement acres” on a map. The voting public should not be fooled. Geoffrey Wingard Orono