The Northern Forest is the largest continuous expanse of undeveloped land east of the Mississippi. But less than five percent of the State of Maine is public land and only one percent of the total area is protected as wilderness. Recent large timberland sales have opened a tremendous opportunity for conservation and the creation of a public estate in Maine. They have also thrown into question generations of public access to these lands and the future of sustainable, forest-based economies.

Vast Expanse
The Northern Forest reaches from western New York State northward and into Maine. Comprising 26 million acres, the Northern Forest is the largest continuous expanse of undeveloped land east of the Mississippi. It is the  land of loons, moose, deer, bear, lynx and hundreds of other plant and animal species.

Maine's share of the Northern Forest amounts to around 15 million acres and is locally called Maine's North Woods. Only five percent of Maine, though, is in public ownership and less and one percent is protected as wilderness. By tacit agreement, honored for generations, Maine residents have had free and easy access to these lands.

The timber companies that have long held these lands now find it exigent to sell them and they are doing so on a huge scale. Depending upon who buys the land and for what uses, long-accepted privileges of public access could disappear, along with much else that makes the North Woods special.

Some Facts

• Since 1998 massive land sales have swept the region. In the past five years, over six million acres have changed hands. That amounts to nearly 20 percent of the region and to 22 percent of Maine alone. There is good news here, too. As sales continue, owners of forestland have become more interested in conservation alternatives such as easements that will protect forest values in perpetuity. Over 1.5 million acres in the Northern Forest have achieved additional conservation protection since 1998.
• Current conservation deals across the region will protect an additional two million acres from development, poor forestry and other environmental damage. It is vital that they, and many more like them, succeed. The alternative is a grim one for the region's biological resources and the unmatched recreational opportunities the North Woods offer:
• Pressure on owners of forestland to sell parcels with lake or river frontage will accelerate. More and more of these waterfront parcels and so-called "kingdom lots" could hit the market.
• Traditional land ownership and stewardship in Maine's North Woods could succumb to the profit-driven imperatives of investor-owned enterprises. Lands are less likely to be managed for sustainability and more likely to fall to liquidation harvesting, re-emerging as tree farms with scarcely an echo of natural diversity.
• Public access to these lands, a long-standing tradition in Maine, is already beginning to suffer. Mainers are being gated out of lands they long used as though they were public.

Status of Land Acquisition Efforts
The Wilderness Society is a founding member of the Northern Forest Alliance which, in turn, partners with a diverse collection of local citizens, community leaders, land trusts, public agencies, landowners and businesses to protect major tracts of land in Maine's North Woods.

We have been focussing our work on the Katahdin Forest Project, the Down East Lakes area, the West Branch Project and the Mt. Blue/Tumbledown Bald Mountain area near Weld, Maine.