The Northern Forest Lands Council, a blue-ribbon group with several representatives appointed by our governor, is looking for public input and ideas to ensure the integrity of the Maine woods continue to be a resource for the future.

In my town the community is shaped by its abundant open space. This open space is dependent on a few large landowners who have held fast to their values for good stewardship. We all fear for the day they pass away and the large inheritance tax forces a sell off for subdivision. The town would then fall victim to what so many other towns have experienced, the withering of its soul.

The withering that threatens our towns is happening to much of what is left of the big woods in Maine. Throughout the Maine woods, economic hardship and the lack of effective policy are forcing change on the land, and wildlife and the families dependent on the forest for their economic and recreational needs. The Maine woods is faced with extensive clearcuting, herbicide spraying, fragmentation of essential wildlife habitat, and development on some of our most pristine lakes and rivers. Communities dependent on the woods face loss of jobs from corporate landowners who, with the interests of their stockholders chiefly in mind, are investing in mills in other regions and countries, not in Maine. With these changes people in Maine are just beginning to recognize that the hollow feeling in the pit of their stomach is the loss of not only our wildlands but an important way of life. We need better forest practice policy, a renewed commitment to our communities from large landowners, more value added industry for sustainable development and a system of wildlands to protect the forest ecosystems upon which we all depend.

Do we hang out around the coffee house and complain or get out and change public policy? It is time to envision our future, realize the untapped economic opportunities and collectively work for solutions that assure healthy forests. We have the ability to do this with the Northern Forest Lands Council. Within the next few months, the council will release its draft recommendations, which represents three years of hard work in defining problems and coming up with solutions for Maine and other states. The council will then hold public listening sessions, March through mid May, to invite comment on their recommendations.

The council’s final recommendations will be influenced by public involvement. If you care about the future, of our way of life and our forests, get enveloped. Contact Northern Forest Lands Council, 54 Portsmouth Street, Concord, N.H. 03301, 603-224-6590. David Johnson Maine Chapter Sierra Club, Phippsburg