While much attention has rightly been focused on conserving Maine’s irreplaceable North Woods, life in our state is also defined by the community-oriented woodlands right out our backdoor. That’s why Mainers should be so grateful for the Lower Penobscot Forest Legacy project that will conserve from development an impressive 42,000 acres of the Lower Penobscot Forest, the largest intact forest in central Maine. With great support from Maine’s congressional delegation, the project is on track to be fully funded when Congress wraps up its appropriations this fall.

This project touches both my personal and professional life here in Maine. My great-grandfather Forrest Marsh was a Master Maine Guide and the founding owner of the Pine Tree Restaurant, a landmark in Bangor for almost 40 years. When he wasn’t running the restaurant, he was out reaping the bounties of the Penobscot River watershed. I recently came across an old tattered photo of Forrest and an impressive lineup of freshly caught salmon on the banks of the mighty Penobscot River. The Lower Penobscot Forest project combined with the Penobscot River Restoration project will take us a big step toward restoring and protecting the salmon fishery that was world-class during Forrest’s day.

In my own lifetime, the area has been special to me in countless ways. When I was growing up, my family spent many important hours in the forests and waterways around Bangor, which seemed a limitless wilderness to me as a young girl. In more recent years, some of my fondest memories include hunting grouse out the Stud Mill road and snowshoeing on the frozen Sunkhaze stream.

I have also seen what these woods mean to other young Mainers. When I was a graduate student at the University of Maine in Orono, I served as a teaching fellow with the National Science Foundation and taught in public schools in the Bangor area. In the winter we tracked animals in the snow and in the fall we collected, classified and studied insects, often using areas in and around the Lower Penobscot Forest as our classroom.

Perhaps most memorable for me was when I took a third grade class from Milford out to the Lower Penobscot Forest in October. As we pulled up to the banks of a stream off the Stud Mill Road, the kids piled out of the bus and came alive. In no time, the youngsters were wildly running through the roadside meadows to catch butterflies or clamoring to kick stoneflies up from the stream bed into our net. You know that something important is happening when today’s young people are moved enough to exclaim, “Awesome! Stoneflies are cool!”

That’s why we need to make sure that Maine’s intact forests don’t slowly shrink until we are forced to drive hours to reach them. Conserving places like the Lower Penobscot Forest in the increasingly parcelized landscape of central Maine will keep life in Maine “the way it should be” for all Mainers. What’s more, conserving community-oriented working forests like the Lower Penobscot will help keep our children connected to our forest heritage instead of just connected to the Internet.

There are many heroes in this story, beginning with the Forest Society of Maine and The Nature Conservancy, who have led the effort to protect these lands. Maine’s great conservation champions in Congress, Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud, are also due great credit. Thanks to their work and the strong support of the Bush administration, the Lower Penobscot Forest was awarded $2.2 million from the Forest Legacy Program in 2007 and is well on track to receive the remaining $3.3 million requested in 2008. In addition, the Land for Maine’s Future Program has supported the project with more than $1 million.

With all the debates about how to spend our precious federal funds, a project like the Lower Penobscot Forest rises to the top. This project will keep Maine the way we like it by keeping us all connected to the woods and our traditions of working and using the land. Perhaps even more importantly, the project will help make sure that young people from surrounding communities (Amherst to Greenfield) will have a chance to stand in cold running streams to marvel at the stonefly, fish and hunt, and embrace our forest heritage.

Deb Perkins of Augusta is the Maine projects director for the Northern Forest Alliance.