American beech at Flint Mountain, with cankers from beech bark illness and bear claw scrapes
Dartmouth School forestry professor and helpers, at long-term forest monitoring plot on Flint Mountain
ALBANY TOWNSHIP — Mahoosuc Land Belief (MLT) lately closed on 295 acres of land in Albany Township to create the group’s first forever-wild property, for the aim of permitting nature to flourish with minimal human intervention. Flint Mountain Wildlands Protect is positioned subsequent to MLT’s Flint Farm conservation easement, making a roughly 500-acre conservation space that will probably be accessible to the general public.
The Flint Mountain property will probably be totally different from the overwhelming majority of MLT’s 20,000+ acres of conserved lands and easements, a lot of which permit energetic administration together with timber harvesting, farming, and the creation of trails for extra intensive leisure use. Guests to Flint Mountain can have entry to benefit from the scenic magnificence and different wilderness values by means of minimal affect, non-mechanized makes use of, similar to strolling, snowshoeing, cross-country snowboarding, and nature commentary and examine. “It’s an thrilling concept for folks after they notice that they’ll expertise locations like this another way,” stated Kirk Siegel, MLT Government Director.
Northeast Wilderness Belief (NEWT), the holder of the forever-wild conservation easement, labored carefully with MLT to guard, in perpetuity, the ecological integrity and wild character of the land. “Without end-wild forests are allowed to develop previous, appearing as carbon shops whereas offering crucial habitats for a lot of species,” stated Caitlin Mather, Land Safety Supervisor at NEWT. “It offers me a terrific sense of reduction realizing that the indicators of wildlife noticed throughout our visits to the land will proceed to be a part of its story.”
The Flint Mountain property has unmarked trails with views to the White Mountains, and MLT plans to work with NEWT on a path enchancment plan later this 12 months that will probably be shared with the general public when full. Motorized makes use of are prohibited. Looking of deer and different non-predator species will probably be welcomed, following the creation of a administration plan developed with NEWT. The conservation easement acknowledges that the Wabanaki folks have lived on this space for hundreds of years, and can enable MLT to enter into tribal cultural respect agreements.
The Flint Mountain Wildlands will probably be a modest first step to exhibit how undeveloped and minimally managed lands play a vital function in forest ecosystems. The land will function a benchmark for understanding the advantages of wildlands inside a panorama of managed forestlands. The land incorporates massive hardwood stands containing considerable pink oak roughly 100 years in age and pasture oaks of very important girth probably relationship again effectively into the 1800s when the land was actively farmed. There was little or no harvesting in latest many years on a lot of the acreage. MLT believes the lands are thus effectively on their approach towards therapeutic and restoration from human affect. The property’s wildland standing may even defend state-identified wild brook trout habitat on streams that feed the Crooked River.
Sebago Clear Waters, a coalition of ten organizations, together with Mahoosuc Land Belief, contributed funding. “This mission is a crucial a part of a broader imaginative and prescient to create an expanse of conserved lands within the Sebago Lake watershed to guard ingesting water, wildlife, and high quality of life. Every time we add a chunk of protected land to the puzzle, these impacts deepen,” stated Karen Younger, partnership director of Sebago Clear Waters. Sebago Clear Waters founding member Portland Water District offered further funding. “The Portland Water District helps the work of Mahoosuc Land Belief as a result of Sebago Lake, our supply of ingesting water, is downstream of the forests they preserve,” stated Paul Hunt, the District’s environmental supervisor. “These woods naturally deal with the water our clients drink and this property will stay wooded eternally. This implies cleaner water, more healthy fisheries, extra habitat for animals and birds, and out of doors recreation alternatives for residents and guests—all issues that make Maine “the Method Life Ought to Be.”
Vital funding additionally got here from donors to MLT’s Ken Hotopp Wildlands Fund, impressed by and in reminiscence of MLT board member and volunteer, Ken Hotopp, a naturalist, conservation biologist, and defender of wilderness and the local weather. Landowner Ken Wille of Albany Township made the transaction potential by means of a beneficiant cut price sale to MLT. Maine Mountain Collaborative offered further funding as a part of its objective to preserve each well-managed forests and ecological reserves.
Northeast Wilderness Belief is a regional land belief that focuses completely on defending wilderness areas—lands completely protected as eternally wild, the place pure processes direct the ebb and stream of life. With its headquarters in Vermont, employees in a number of states, and board members throughout the Northeast, the Wilderness Belief (newildernesstrust.org) protects greater than 76,000 acres in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Mahoosuc Land Belief (www.mahoosuc.org) is a nationally accredited land belief based in 1989 with a mission “to preserve and share the Mahoosuc area’s essential pure lands with our communities now and for the long run.” MLT welcomes guests to get pleasure from nature-based actions at Valentine Farm Conservation Heart, 14 MLT preserves, and 4 Androscoggin River canoe landings, and engages lots of of volunteers per 12 months to take care of them. The land belief operates in each western Maine and northern NH and has conserved 22,000 acres of land within the area essential to communities, together with mountaintops, waterfalls, trails, boat landings, farms, and pure habitat.
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