FUND FOREST LEGACY

The federal Forest Legacy program has helped preserve some of Maine’s well-known landmarks such as Moosehead Lake and the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Once again, however, the program is under attack from a small group of Republican lawmakers. As they have in the past, fortunately, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins continue to support the program, which has preserved more than 1 million acres in 29 states.

In the last decade more than 600,000 acres in Maine have been conserved with Forest Legacy funds. The federal program enables the state and private entities to purchase development rights on forest land, keeping places like Nicatous Lake and Tumbledown Mountain free of camps and resorts, while allowing logging to continue. This benefits those who rely on the woods for work and those who use them for recreation. Both are important to the state’s economy.

Although President Bush has included $80 million for Forest Legacy in his budget, Republicans in the House have proposed cutting the program’s funding to just $25 million with no money allocated to specific state projects.

The Senate should stick with the president’s numbers.

The president included two Maine projects in his budget: $5 million for Katahdin Iron Works and $2.5 million for the Machias River.

The Katahdin Iron Works project, which is being overseen by the Appalachian Mountain Club, consists of 37,000 acres located in famed 100-Mile Wilderness region. The land is being preserved as part of AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative, which also seeks to preserve logging jobs by continuing to cut trees on the land. The Machias River project aims to protect 7,785 acres from development along the river’s headwaters. It will protect spawning grounds for Atlantic salmon and habitat for bald eagles.

Another valuable program that faces major cuts is the Land and Water Conservation Fund stateside grant program, for which the president included no funding in his budget. Sen. Collins led an effort by 41 of her colleagues to encourage the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee to fund the program, which is used to build ball fields, biking trails and access to fishing areas, at the $91 million it received last year.

That money rehabilitated 572 parks and built 87 new parks around the country. As the letter writers, which included Sen. Snowe, note, these projects are especially important at a time when too few children are routinely involved in outdoor activities, leading to obesity and health problems. Increasing the number of easily accessible outdoor spaces could reduce health care costs.

More than 760 state and local projects have been completed in Maine with LWCF funding. These include building municipal recreational facilities and improving state parks.

Both these programs have proven results and should continue to be funded.