The Maine Mountain Conference 2006

Saddleback Base Lodge

Rangeley Lakes Region, Maine

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2006

 

W

hy a mountain conference now? The mountains of Maine are undergoing the most rapid development pressures in history. Owners of every inch of coastal property with access to or views of the water are pelted with offers to sell almost daily. Mountain summits are especially in demand.

Land inland adjacent to the narrow Appalachian Trail corridor that runs from the New Hampshire border to Katahdin used to be owned mostly by paper companies and managed to provide raw materials for their mills. In the past decade all this land has been sold to land speculators. No mill now owns land in the high peaks region of Maine, the cluster of 4,000 foot peaks and near 4,000 foot summits between Saddleback and Bigelow.

The new owners are required to provide wood to the mills for a few more years, but the handwriting is on the wall. Commercial woodlands that for generations provided buffers around Maine mountains will soon be sold to the highest bidders.

O

ur October 21 conference will be devoted to these and other pressures facing our mountains. Our task: to catalog the environmental damages that are likely, and suggest policy changes that will protect crucial resources.

Text Box: The time is right for a 2nd Maine Mountain Conference to: • Remind policy makers, legislators, industry, public interest groups, and the general public why many of Maine’s mountains were protected in the 1970s; • Review and assess the value and usefulness of the protections now in place; • Present and weigh new concerns and threats to Maine’s mountains; and • Explore new opportunities for preserving, conserving and protecting the mountains. The first Maine Mountain conference, held in 1972, set the intellectual and scientific background for the Land Use Regulation Commission rules for wild land development in place today. More than 30 years later, these same concerns and opportunities resonant with an eerie familiarity.

 

 

 

Keynote: Neil Rolde, Historian

Neil Rolde, Maine’s premier historian and author of many books about the wildlands of Maine, will tell us “What we have learned about the Maine Mountains since 1972.” Scientists, researchers and planners will continue the dialogue all day.

 

Participants include: Vermont Institute of Natural Science, Appalachian Mountain Club, Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research, American Bird Conservancy, Forest Society of Maine, The Wilderness Society, Pam Underhill, Park Manager, National Appalachian Scenic Trail, and many more.
 

For more information: www.matlt.org/conference.asp

or contact Richard Fecteau 207-778-0870 (rfecteau@midmaine.com) for a brochure.