Conservation Visionaries
As part of our ambitious “30x30 Land and Water Conservation Initiative”, we hired a GIS firm to fully analyze and map our entire service area. The layers of mapping help us understand where the most critical lands to wildlife migration, water protection and climate change resilience are located. The process of conservation takes many forms, including identifying the most “important” places to defend from development or misuse.
Land conservation is a complicated process, and one we can’t accomplish alone. Without blank checks to purchase any parcel we want to protect, we depend on the partnership of landowners throughout the midcoast who share our conservation values. To that end, we are so fortunate to have visionary donors whose dedication to those values leads them to donate land or conservation easements.
People like a pair of blueberry farmers in Waldoboro who purchased an undeveloped woodland that had been recently cut over, with the intention to donate it to Midcoast Conservancy as a connector piece between two existing easements. The parcel adds to a protected, undeveloped habitat block of 272 acres.
Or the couple who were determined to put a conservation easement on their property before selling it, even though the presence of the easement would mean finding the perfect buyers who shared their conservation vision. Their property included intact forest that provides habitat for plants and wildlife, and connects to protected land to the north, contributing to a significant habitat corridor. Three acres of tidal wading bird habitat within a tidal salt marsh add greatly to this property’s ecological significance. Thankfully, they did find those perfect buyers, creating a win-win-win for sellers, buyers, and the natural world!
And the mother-daughter team who were similarly committed to putting an easement on a beloved piece of property before selling it. The parcel includes 106 acres of natural and undeveloped forest land, wildlife habitat and wetlands and lies between the Deep Cove and Cook’s Pond focus areas in a 12 Rivers habitat corridor. Its conservation has prevented development in a high-risk location and will keep the forest from being heavily logged and developed in perpetuity.
These are just some of the visionary conservation partners for whom we are so grateful. The process of land conservation is a slow, deliberative one and can’t be accomplished without the shared values and generosity of those who long to see midcoast Maine protected into the distant and uncertain future.
