GREENVILLE – A group of stakeholders in the Moosehead Lake region have recognized that to thwart any effort to create a Maine Woods National Park, they have to do a better job of explaining why a national park is not needed.

Toward that end, a group called the Maine Woods Coalition is being formed. The group’s members say they hope to be a strong voice to advance the common interests of local recreational, commercial and industrial users of the northern Maine forest.

“Bringing out what we already are is terribly important,” Duke McKeil, executive director of the Moosehead Marine Museum, said Thursday during a meeting to discuss the coalition’s incorporation as a nonprofit group. He said the region has all the attributes of a national park now without the restrictions such a park would impose.

RESTORE: The North Maine Woods, a Massachusetts-based environmental organization, has proposed the establishment of a national park in northern Maine to preserve forestland. The organization has begun a statewide publicity campaign to get the federal government to make the park designation.

Because RESTORE is well-established and appears to have unlimited finances, those gathered this week said they recognized that the fight against the park will be an uphill battle.

“These people have got a helluva head start,” Louis Hilton, who owns a large amount of land in Greenville, said. “We are going to have to really scurry to catch up.”

To counter RESTORE’S publicity campaign, coalition supporters hope to raise as much as $100,000 from sportsmen, individuals, private industry and organizations, as well as from foundations and grants, for education, consensus building and related activities.

For some time now, a small core of leaders has been meeting to iron out details of such a coalition, an effort promoted by Loren Ritchie of Greenville and Greenville Town Manager John Simko. The meetings began in September when RESTORE’s efforts became known.”The value of the Maine Woods Coalition is that it will serve as a voice for what the people living and working in the greater Piscataquis County region have to say about the future of the Maine woods,” Simko said in a prepared statement earlier this month. “By showing the public what recreational opportunities are currently available without a national park, we hope to dispel the myth that a Maine Woods National Park is necessary at all.”

At Thursday’s meeting, more than 20 leaders reviewed proposed articles of incorporation prepared by attorney Eric Stumpfel of Sangerville. The participants represented small and large businesses, paper companies, town officials and local organizations, as well as residents.

During the meeting, Greenville Code Enforcement Officer Richard Gould said the landowners have done a very poor job of promoting their good deeds, which include providing access for recreational use.

Ritchie, a retired educator, told those gathered that the group’s primary purpose at the onset was “to establish a power-sharing base for which we would have a legitimate and strong voice.”

Ritchie said that earlier this fall, he felt as if he were standing out on a limb being battered by the advocates of the national park and their finances. The coalition, he said, will provide equal footing.

It is expected that the group will sign the incorporation papers at a Jan. 4 meeting in Greenville at which time a steering committee will be designated.