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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: 1) by Francis on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:56PM
National Parks have restrictions on them to ensure that they're there for people to enjoy for years to come. The National Forests are often times logged and have much less in the way of rules about how they're used. Any American can camp anywhere they like in the National Forest and there are few restrictions about what you're allowed to do as long as you're not damaging it. You can cut wood there, but there's a permit you have to get and there's a few restrictions, but it's not hard to get those permits.
Also, National Parks can be rather surprising, I know of one locally that's only a few thousand square feet and located completely inside of one of the local buildings. It's a museum that's designated as a National Park and they've even moved it.