Plum Creek: Keep it local

Those of us who do not live in the Greenville region – or who have only recently moved there – should be cautious about our prescriptions for its future. As residents in Maine, we have a right to our points of view – certainly Moosehead Lake and its environment offer a future in which we all share – but the people who live in this region – the people who have lived there over the years – share in the region’s future in a way that the rest of us do not. One of us lives in Bangor and one of us is only a very recent resident in Greenville. With that in mind, here is another view from away.

As the Land Use Regulation Commission considers Plum Creek Timber Co.’s development proposal, it should also consider the community ecology of the Greenville region. What is necessary for the region’s communities to have a sustainable, prosperous future?

A defining problem for northern and central Maine is the inescapable reality that the status quo will only lead to a sustained decline for our communities. Unless this is an acceptable future – and for many of us it is not – change is necessary. For this change to be productive it must nourish communities, not destroy them. On the one hand, this nourishment requires substantial capital investment. On the other hand, it requires the survival of communities in which to invest.

One of the threats to the Greenville region at the moment is the loss of the institutions at the heart of its communities, the region’s local schools. One reason why school consolidation poses such a threat to Greenville and to many rural communities in Maine is that it offers a well-intentioned bureaucratic solution that unintentionally seems to attack a community at its heart. School consolidation must strengthen community identity in Maine, not destroy it. Greenville and its region need to find ways to sustain their local schools.

The Greenville region also needs to sustain its local hospital. It needs to provide broadband for all its residents and businesses. In order for this to happen, however, substantial capital investment is essential. In order for the region’s communities to have the economic and cultural power to conserve the remarkable inheritance that Moosehead and its environment offer, substantial capital investment is necessary as well.

Where will it come from?

Plum Creek is offering one approach to substantial capital investment. It is proposing to do this in a way that will seed future investment for cultural and eco-tourism and other economic opportunities. It is proposing to invest in a way that many responsible individuals and organizations feel will preserve the Moosehead region – and its remarkable environment – by providing thoughtful long-term conservation. Those who oppose the Plum Creek proposal are apparently willing to forego this substantial investment.

One would have hoped that they would have offered an alternative plan that would provide comparable capital investment in the region, but as far as we can tell, from their perspective the status quo continues to be acceptable. For those of us from away, the status quo in Greenville may indeed seem acceptable – so long as it does not preclude economic development and prosperity in our own communities from which, from time to time, we can visit and enjoy Moosehead and the region.

But is this indifference to community ecology in the Greenville region ethical? As far as we can tell, Plum Creek and the organizations that have negotiated the current proposal offer a practical, thoughtful, and ethical way to create sustainable communities in the future. Those who oppose the plan do not. They only offer their opposition.

If a majority of the people who live in the Greenville region wish to reject the Plum Creek proposal, we would certainly respect their decision; ours is a view from away. Otherwise we believe that LURC should approve the proposal, and the coalition that developed the concept plan for Plum Creek’s lands in the Moosehead region should be thanked for the citizenship involved. We hope that approval will be part of a sustained commitment to a sustainable future, not only for the Greenville region but for all communities and people in rural Maine.

Yvon Labb? lives in Greenville and is the director of the Franco-American Centre at the University of Maine. Tony Brinkley of Bangor is a faculty associate at the centre.