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The US National Park Service (NPS) has opened a new park in the vast central interior of Maine. Last Wednesday President Obama designated the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument on 87,000 acres of land (by comparison, Acadia National Park, located on an island off the coast of Maine, is 49,000 acres). The park land consists of what appears to be three discontiguous pieces, the largest of which borders Baxter State Park (home of Mt. Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail) on its western side, and the upper reaches of the Penobscot River on the eastern side.
The park is already open to the public.
The land was donated to the US government by Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt's Bees personal care products company. Quimby, a conservationist, spent decades using the proceeds from her business fortune to buy up Maine forest land; her work was controversial because she placed them off limits to loggers, snowmobilers and hunters. Quimby sold her stake in Burt's Bees to Clorox in 2007.
The new park is controversial in central Maine as well. It is a monument rather than a national park, chiefly because creating a National Park requires an act of Congress, while a national monument can be created by executive order. Obama noted, however, that Acadia National Park was originally established as a national monument as well (in 1916; it became a national park three years later).
There was, and remains, substantial local opposition to the bestowing of the land to the NPS, for a mixture of economic and emotional reasons; in particular, the land is now permanently unavailable for commercial logging, and perhaps for rights-of-way by loggers. Prices of nearby real estate may increase, making the economics more difficult for timber companies. Quimby, the donor, was controversial, as already mentioned, as was the unilateral action by Obama in designating the monument. Some fear the imposition of new air pollution controls on local paper mills. There is distrust of the NPS and fear of the emergence of a bureaucracy that will clash with local values.
But the initial harsh reaction seems to have scaled back a bit. Promises have been made to allow access to hunters, snowmobiles, and all terrain vehicles; logging access is probably another long discussion.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:40PM
It's a trade.
My father grew up in a similar area (lived in a tent until he was old enough to require some 'scoolin, and his family moved back into town).
There was a mill that was pretty much all employment for the area, and of course the forest.
Went back about 50 years later and the entire area was clear-cut.
I've never seen my dad cry.
He cried then.
Over a long enough frame, the population exceeds what the land can provide, and there are some tough choices to be made regarding land use, population control, and the local economy.
While I'm deeply suspicious of conservation efforts, this scenario could have just as easily been about a public garden (try that in an urban area) and that tricky intersection between land, people, and government.
Anyhoo- it has given me a deeper appreciation of the arguments made by Georgist, and made we should really rethink this notion of land ownership.