AUGUSTA – Nature-based tourism could transform rural Maine economies, but first legislators must ensure that a proposed tax incentive program won’t inadvertently destroy the very wild lands and rustic, family-owned cabins that have built the state’s reputation, according to those who attended a public hearing on the plan Tuesday.

Small-business owners feel like they’re all alone, struggling to keep rural economies afloat, Rep. Stan Moody, D-Manchester, told members of the Legislature’s Business, Research and Economic Development Committee as they began consideration of the Pine Tree Recreation Zone bill that he drafted in concert with the Baldacci administration.

Moody and other supporters spoke of the difficulty that rural entrepreneurs face in financing tourism businesses far from the coast. They described recommendations by a consulting firm called FERMATA, which has told Maine that it needs to develop infrastructure to support its limitless recreation tourism potential.

Maine is blessed with lakes, mountains and forests – but it lacks beds for the growing group of financially secure tourists who want to experience nature with all the comforts of home, the firm concluded. Visitors to rural Maine will continue to purchase little more than enough gas to drive away, unless businesses get innovative and give them reasons to stay, said supporters of the tax incentive proposal.

“Our largest industry (tourism) is no different than any other. We can either change and adapt, or fall behind,” said Jeff Sosnaud, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Recreation and Community Development.

Moody’s bill offered several levels of criteria that a business would have to meet to receive the Pine Tree Recreation Zone benefits – including a relationship with a Maine Guide or some other experiential tourism business; a requirement that the business operate nearly year-round; and a provision that its primary customers be out-of-state tourists.

Businesses also must be located in zones with a density of fewer than 30 people per square mile, which would include regions surrounding Presque Isle, Dover-Foxcroft, Millinocket, Houlton, Skowhegan, Lincoln, Calais, Machias, Farmington and Rumford, encompassing everything north of Bangor except the community of Madawaska.

But it was the provision requiring that new lodging facilities offer 40 beds with private baths, as well as a dining room and conference center that concerned the Maine Sporting Camps Association. To qualify, existing camps would have to spend $250,000 on improvements – an unrealistic goal considering that most camps are located on leased land, and that many are restricted from substantial renovation because of their proximity to the water, said Bob Crouse, speaking for the association, as well as his own Spencer Pond Camps near Moosehead Lake.

Several legislators raised concerns that controversial development projects like the Plum Creek Timber Co.’s plans for the Moosehead Lake region and a plan to situate lodges along a cross-country ski trail near Bigelow Mountain would be more typical of the operations that would benefit from the new incentives. These are the very businesses that compete with traditional, rustic sporting camps, Crouse said.

“Please don’t forget our traditional outdoor industries as you reach for a new ecotourism opportunity. … Don’t forget the little guy,” said George Smith of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, who asked legislators to expand the bill to include small sporting camps, as well as efforts to improve the fisheries resource that attracts many of their clients.

But the tourism world is changing, and the Pine Tree Recreation Zone proposal reflects the new reality, countered Matt Polstein, who operates the New England Outdoor Center in Millinocket.

“We started out with people who were happy to sleep on the ground, get up and go down to the river” for white-water rafting, he said.

Now, Polstein owns cabins and a high-end restaurant in the Katahdin region, and is looking to add a resort to a region where luxury lodging is “in short supply.”

“These sporting camps are going to have to upgrade dramatically, or nothing is going to help them,” he said.

Others, including Nick Bennett of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, asked committee members to consider where ecotourism development would be appropriate before finalizing an incentive plan.

“If resort developments are out in the North Woods, they will draw economic activity away from the communities and they will threaten the value of the very resources visitors come to see: vast undeveloped natural areas, forests teeming with wildlife and pristine shorelines,” he said.

“We are not looking to create development in the middle of nowhere,” Sosnaud replied, adding that he believes existing land use regulations would protect wild places from inappropriate development.

A work session on Moody’s bill, LD 921, has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, in Room 208 of the Cross State Office Building.