Its called Katahdin Woods and Waters. I think this is an impressive capstone to Obama’s presidency. I live in Maine, and have thought for a long time that the North Woods should be a national park.
Reading that article was a little confusing to me. So this land was privately owned and then donated to the federal government to be turned into a national monument (by executive order since a park designation would take a literal act of Congress) and… people are mad that it won’t instead be used for logging? If she can afford to donate it to the government, she obviously wasn’t going to be selling it to ACME Timber any time soon to pay her cable bills. What made them think that this woman was ever going to turn over her land for logging purposes? Was there some aspect that I’m missing here where the governor on down demands that a privately owned parcel be opened up for some other industry and how dare she do with her land what she wants?
She has been working for most of her life to have the north woods become a national park. She bought the land years ago, with the intent of donating it to the federal government to be used as a park.
Thanks. I got that much, I just didn’t understand the anger that it wasn’t going to be used for logging. It was that woman’s land.
If I build a swimming pool in my yard and my neighbor is mad because they hate pool noise, that’s one thing. If they’re mad because they wanted to put a softball diamond in my yard, that’s considerably more bizarre. But the blowback from this seems to go up to the governor so it’s not just a “neighborhood” issue.
Just an FYI, the governor of Maine is insane.
… and mainly in the plain. 
It’s a fairly complex issue for the locals. In addition to the logging which brought money to the area they’ve been using the land for recreation for generations (hunting, fishing, camps, snowmobiling, etc). When Quimby bought the land there were restrictions placed on the land for use, leases on camps were ended, etc. The concern is that due to the National Monument designation more lands will fall into this category, and the whole thing will be run by Washington without any consideration of the locals long history of land use.
Is that a legitimate gripe? I think there are points to both sides of the issue. The reality is that things will change up there, some for the better, some for the worse. I like that a big stretch of wonderful terrain is being preserved. I would like to see a better long term plan for how to integrate the new monument with Baxter State Park, the AT, and the local community.
Who did Quimby buy the land from? Another private owner? A number of private owners (to make one giant parcel)? The state?
I think a significant issue is that the Federal government will start buying up adjacent land. It’s very common for parks to be expanded.
Are the Feds using eminent domain to force the sales? Or, are folks choosing to sell? If it’s the latter, complain about your neighbors. Or other rich people not buying the land instead.
Trump may reverse this. Everyone needs to get over the logging thing. When the land belonged to Quimby, she didn’t let people use it for logging. She bought it for the express purpose of turning it over to the government for a national park. Obama has taken the first step in that process.
I thought he was always laughing, having fun, showing his films in the den.
I don’t think the issue is about these lands being used for logging (there’s still plenty of trees in Northern Maine,) but that by donating it to the feds, that the lands will no longer be taxable by local government and the state. The Feds don’t always make the quietest of neighbors, either: National Parks tend to expand if they become successful, and they don’t tend to worry too much about who they toss out in their expansion. That being said, Millinocket would probably happily give up large portions of its outskirts in exchange for a tourist population that extended beyond the beginning of Trail season.
What I found surprising in that article is the idea that creating this park is supposed to draw tourists from Acadia National Park further inland. MDI is a good three hours away from Katahdin, and the mountain itself is the only draw to get people out there. If people are enjoying traversing hills and forests, but they don’t specifically want to climb Katahdin, why would they go that far inland to see more of the same Maine woods that they already have in Acadia?
Is there any other sector that shares this entitlement attitude with logging, that every single tree on earth is within their natural right to exploit, and not a single tree is excepted? They’ve got to have them all, to do with as they please, limited only by their unchallenged sense of self-severing and not very unbiased stewardship.
What their attitude most reminds me of is a couple years ago during a sheriff-sponsored gun buyback program, a gun advocacy group demanded that the county sell the guns they bought rather than destroy them. In both instances private groups think the government doesn’t have a right to do what it wants with its own property.
And the majority of acreage the government owns is because no one else wanted to own it. Heck, even today the government wouldn’t be very likely to find a buyer for much of it since the property taxes plus the purchase cost would hardly be worth the resources you can strip from it, not when you don’t even need to buy it to cut from it or graze it.
Why would the logging industry want to own the forests, when they can cut in government land, particularly National Forests? That’s my forest, and it costs me more to drive through the gate and pitch a tent, than loggers pay to harvest the trees.
You are free to do what you want with your land while you own it but transferring it to the feds seems like something the state should have a say in.
She gave it to the feds and not to the state. Obama has done great things in preserving our open spaces. He has permanently protected more than 265 million acres of America’s public lands and waters – more than any other president in history.
As a national monument, it can be opened up to mining and oil drilling.
Perhaps the locals could apply for oil and mining permits. If testing reveals something of value and permits are granted, they could easily log the land to create space for oil and mine areas.
Win for the locals! And bad for the environment and everyone else.
(I wonder how the locals would have felt if she donated the land to the Nature Conservancy and placed covenants on its use as part of the donation?)
Me bad.
I realize she gave it to the feds. It seems weird to me that an individual private property owner can take land the state controls and give that land to the feds without any state comment.