National park poll

The surprise of a recent Sierra Club poll on creating a national park in northern Maine was that the general impression of the park’s supporters as underdogs just trying to be heard is wrong. Statewide anyway, they appear to be a majority of Maine citizens. What this majority thinks influences politicians and policy, but lawmakers shouldn’t confuse the need to preserve land with the need to invite the federal government to create a park here.

What also should not be done is blame the Sierra Club for taking the poll or accuse Abacus Associates, which did the actual polling, of conducting a push poll, as some are doing. The questions were straightforward. The one that drew a 63-percent positive response was as follows: Some people have proposed creating a 3 million acre national park in Maine’s North Woods. On the basis of what you know now, do you think you would favor or oppose the proposal for a national park? A follow-up question with similar phrasing but that specifically described the area of the proposed park around Baxter State Park received a positive response among 62.5 percent of the 500 people polled.

This should be no shocker to the forest-products industry, which itself has found that a majority of Mainers support a national park here. Another knock on the poll – that it was conducted statewide – also is misguided. Any referendum on the issue would be held statewide and legislators, of course, come from all over. Several letter writers, however, have correctly suggested that people within, say, working distance of the proposed park should be separately polled. Their views, because of their proximity, are particularly significant.

Certainly, there are many reasons to oppose such a park. Gov. Angus King the other day mentioned the imposition of federal bureaucracy that a national park would bring. His comments only begin to describe the cultural changes that would occur if the state were to trade its logging tools for a T-shirt concession at the park’s entrance. Maine may depend on tourism, but Maine can’t live on tourism.

As important, the public might ask what a park would bring that is not already offered in the woods. Access? The public has it from large landowners in a highly unusual arrangement of tradition and law. Wildlife? The state is famous for it, without the federal government buying up a huge chunk of land. Solitude? There’s plenty, more than visitors of national parks are likely to find.

This is not to knock national parks. Acadia is a jewel, and Maine is better for its presence. But there is a limited amount of land suitable for public ownership and a limited amount of money to make those purchases, so employing both to their greatest effect makes more sense than simply acquiring – on either the state or federal level – a lot of land and hoping for the best.

Maine’s current plan of buying, either outright or through easements, places of importance because of their unusual biota or striking geological features remains the better way to go. The state’s natural places aren’t homogeneous. Coastal ecosystems are markedly different from inland systems; pine and oak give way to spruce and fir as one travels north. Rather than setting aside one large piece, Maine should look at a diversity of places, particularly in areas of greatest development stress – along the coast and in southern Maine.

The Sierra Club poll tells Maine once again that its residents value land preservation. But the key for this state is to invest its limited resources where they will do the most good.