I’m writing about your article, “Preservation rules stirring opposition from landowners” (BDN, July 21-22). I’m glad to see that at least some rural property owners besides me are waking up to reality.

The facts are that the unholy alliance between the well-heeled rabid environmentalists, big government at the state and federal levels, and a few bleeding heart locals who have been misled have effectively taken control of property away from the owners. This movement is merely an extension of the anti-fireworks and anti-firearms people who are forcing their version of an ordered and planned society upon us. They aren’t really interested in protecting us from ourselves, they want to dominate us. They can’t stand to see any conceivable situation that is not to be overregulated to the point of ridiculousness and our frustration.

None of us, landowners in particular, wants to see our wildlands laid waste by development but we recognize that people must have the freedom to pursue happiness and try to make a living from off their land if necessary, because this is what the people of Maine have always had to do to survive for the most part. Maine has had a long history of self-employment neccessitated by a lack of industrial job development over the years and the present epidemic of environmentalism will insure that the future will see the continuance of such a tendency. This is all the more reason not to restrict the options that rural property owners must have to continue to survive. Elliott E. Thompson Penobscot