The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
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Jym St. Pierre
Editor, Maine Environmental News
MAINEBIZ • February 5, 2026
Unity Environmental University, a private liberal arts institution in Maine, has launched the Couri Graduate School of Business. The new graduate school will offer a business education focused on sustainability and climate risk. The launch is supported by a $750,000 endowment, $500,000 of which came from philanthropist Elaine and John Couri, along with contributions from their family and friends. The endowment will fund students from around the country who will travel to Maine to attend a week-long, in-person immersion session at Unity’s 150-acre Moose River campus in Somerset County. Enrollment will begin in March, offering an MBA in climate-ready business and a master’s in sustainable finance.
US SEN. ANGUS KING • February 5,2026
U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME) and John Barrasso (R-WY) today announced that their bill to improve national park safety has passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously. Their Making National Parks Safer Act would equip National Park Service (NPS) 911 call centers with Next Generation 911 (NG911) technology, strengthening emergency response capabilities, supporting dispatch center operations, and enabling responders to receive text messages, images, and videos in addition to phone calls. The bill now heads to the Senate Floor for further consideration and potential passage.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 5, 2026
Snowy owls are winter visitors in Maine, drifting down from the Arctic when food conditions push them south. Knowing this, it became my personal mission to find one. And, surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard. As birder and outdoor contributor Bob Duchesne advises, follow three simple rules when observing them: don’t get too close, watch their behavior and use optics to view from a distance.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 5, 2026
Southern Aroostook economic development planners believe Island Falls’ four-season outdoor recreation blueprint will draw overnight visitors to the region. The longterm, multi-phase project includes a grant-funded downtown riverfront park with a pedestrian bridge and amphitheater and nearly 70 miles of an Outdoor Sport Institute-guided trail system. From a canoe and kayak launch, paddlers can travel all the way to Mattawamkeag Lake and historic Bible Point — the same route once traveled by Theodore Roosevelt. The trail funding is part of a multiyear $1.25 million project, funded by federal and state grants, that will deliver more than 18 miles of natural surface trails in Island Falls, Patten and Millinocket. The Outdoor Sport Institute, a nonprofit based in Millinocket, was recently awarded the grants to expand non-motorized trail systems throughout Maine’s Katahdin Region as a way to support the region’s growing outdoor economy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • February 4, 2026
Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study. The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that from 2006 to 2020, long-term exposure to tiny particulates from wildfire smoke contributed to an average of 24,100 deaths a year in the lower 48 states. Along with decades of forest mismanagement, growing development in fire-prone areas has expanded the “urban wildland interface,” increasing wildfire risk with real consequences for human health, said Michael Jerrett, professor of environmental health science. The Trump administration’s rollbacks in climate change policy, even as the more destructive wildfires become more frequent in large part due to global warming, poses critical risks, the study’s authors said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 4, 2026
A large housing development in Gorham Village is one Planning Board step away from a green light following its action on Feb. 2 granting preliminary approval. Developer KV Enterprises is seeking to build 565 housing units on 131 acres behind Village Elementary School. The project calls for 91 single-family lots and 474 multifamily units in eight buildings, each four or five stories tall.
CENTRAL MAINE • February 4, 2026
People of all ages are flocking to heated shacks at D’s Camps for seasonal fishing experience.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 4 2026
In recent years, shed hunting in Maine has exploded in popularity. Social media, online markets and rising demand for moose and deer antlers have turned what was once a personal passion into something far more competitive — and at times, cutthroat. Stories circulate of stolen spots, sabotaged areas, false online accusations and even threats exchanged between people who all claim to love the same woods. I turned shed hunting — particularly for moose antlers — into a business. Not out of greed, but necessity. The antlers I find help pay for gas, food, gear and the ability to continue traveling and searching in the North Maine Woods. I’ve received threats simply for monetizing something others believe should remain untouched, or reserved for a select few. Shed hunting doesn’t have to become a battleground. There is room for passion without hostility, competition without cruelty and success without sabotage. ~ Drew Maciel
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 4, 2026
Water quality in Long Cove, an inlet of Deer Isle that hosts clamming, elver harvesting and an oyster farm, is set to be protected by a new conservation project upstream. Island Heritage Trust, a land trust that preserves properties in Deer Isle and Stonington, is on track to acquire 77 acres at the headwaters of Meadow Brook for that purpose. Water there flows into the cove. The trust will get $250,000 to help it do so in the first round of funding through the state’s Climate Resilience Conservation Fund. The funding is part of a $69 million grant Maine received from NOAA in July of 2024. The program plans to distribute $4.1 million over three funding rounds for conservation projects that can provide protection against storms, flooding and erosion.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 3, 2026
A foreclosure auction has been scheduled for a Kennebunkport camping resort owned by a Maine hotelier who also owns resort properties on Mount Desert Island. Sandy Pines Campground, a 47-acre, 268-site “glamping” resort located at 277 Mills Road in Kennebunkport, will be auctioned off March 5, according to a description of the property on Keenan Auction Company’s website. Tim Harrington, the campground owner, also is facing more liens and legal complaints over unpaid contractor services for work done at the Asticou Hotel on Mount Desert Island, which re-opened last year after a $28 million renovation.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 3, 2026
The Wabanaki Alliance is ramping up its push for Maine to fully recognize tribal sovereignty — and it’s looking beyond the end of Gov. Janet Mills’ administration. The alliance, composed of representatives from the four Indigenous nations in Maine as well as non-native allies, is pushing a slate of bills this session that would reshape the legal framework under which tribes in Maine operate into something that more closely resembles the other 571 federally recognized tribes nationwide. It’s also pushing initiatives to support Wabanaki studies curriculum development for public schools and lay the groundwork for certain kinds of land return.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 3, 2026
Jessica Dobson and Todd Roma have owned Roma Farm in Raymond since 2001, which includes a historic farmhouse and barn, and have spent decades working to prevent the land from being overdeveloped. The farm has been rented as an events venue since 2008. In a Facebook post, Dobson and Roma said they had previously gone to the town to make sure that everything they were doing was lawful and were explicitly told that there was no ordinance prohibiting residents from hosting private events on their property or renting their property. However, in October 2024, Roma Farm received a land use notice of violation for having a tent, portable restroom and parking signs on the property. Roma Farm said no ordinance exists in Raymond prohibiting such things.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 3, 2026
Despite its inevitable arrival, the moon still took everyone by surprise Sunday night. Snowshoeing through the middle of a pasture at Hurricane Valley Farm in the last hour of daylight, participants in the Falmouth Land Trust’s full moon hike faced the fiery sunset to the west, listening to Maine naturalist Jack Kennell explain how deer and wood frogs are evolutionary adapted to survive the harshest season. During a time of year when the early darkness and never-ending cold prompt many Mainers to retire inside after 4 p.m., Maine land trusts and outdoor organizations encourage appreciation of winter nights with hikes beneath the rising full moon. This is the second year the Falmouth Land Trust has hosted this February event.
MAINE MONITOR • February 2, 2026
In 2021, the Maine Department of Transportation partnered with federal and state wildlife agencies to install a wide culvert designed to help turtles, including the endangered Blanding’s turtle, safely cross a notoriously deadly section of Route 236 in Eliot. In the years since, tens of thousands of people have driven over this wildlife crossing, most of them unaware it is even there. And dozens of species, both shelled and nonshelled, have taken advantage of the underpass. During a presentation last Tuesday, biologists at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife reported that the turtle tunnel — the first of its kind in Maine — is working.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 2, 2026
A rugged, nearly 6-foot, 230-pound professional logger, Greg Drummond doesn’t tolerate bullies or those who take advantage of the vulnerable. For two decades, I guided birdwatchers at Claybrook Mountain Lodge, an outdoor recreation resort owned by Greg and Pat Drummond from the late 1970s until their retirement in 2019. Greg, now 73, works multiple jobs to help make ends meet in retirement. He cuts and sells sawlogs and dimension lumber from his portable sawmill. As a registered Maine Guide, he leads hunters in autumn and fishermen in spring. For a decade, Drummond earned extra income overseeing a few thousand acres as Pierce Pond Watershed Trust’s easement manager. Somehow he also found time to serve as chief of the Highland Plantation Volunteer Fire Department while building and selling 33 Grand Laker canoes from cedars he harvested primarily from his woodlot. He’s the most humble, generous and compassionate person I’ve ever known. ~ Ron Joseph
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 2, 2026
After nearly a year of fundraising, the Magalloway Collaborative is closing in on the $62 million purchase of some 78,000 acres of western Maine lands that will be permanently conserved for a variety of public uses. The parcel, about a 30-minute drive west of Rangeley, contains 170 miles of rivers and streams and 2,400 acres of wetlands and lakes. It will connect about 500,000 acres of conserved land stretching from New Hampshire into Maine’s Franklin County, including along portions of the Canadian border. The collaborative, which launched fundraising for the conservation project in March 2025, has a remaining goal of $12.4 million toward the purchase before its May deadline to close on the property. The Magalloway Collaborative consists of Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust , The Nature Conservancy in Maine, Forest Society of Maine and the Northeast Wilderness Trust.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 2, 2026
Matt Newberg grew up in Harpswell and returned four years ago. He’s now the executive director of the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust, which has conserved more than 1,800 acres in the town. “I feel very fortunate to be back here,” Newberg said. “I’m also very proud to be with the land trust because I think one of the things that has made Harpswell, since my time here in the mid-’70s, so special is the amount of open space that there is for people to enjoy, whether that’s town trails or our preserves or just private properties that allow folks to visit.” “There just isn’t, in my opinion, a more quintessential Maine harbor than Mackerel Cove,” Newberg said. “It’s really idyllic.” The town and the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust both own land in this area, increasing access for the public.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 2, 2026
The family of a University of Maine student who died last week after a gas leak at the Down East mill where he worked said Monday that they are heartbroken over his death but grateful for the outpouring of support that has followed. Kasie Malcolm, 20, died Wednesday, hours after a gas leak at his off-campus job at Woodland Pulp in Baileyville.
SUN JOURNAL • February 2, 2026
The land surrounding a popular Woodstock roadside springwas purchased by a local man Dec. 15, saving it from an uncertain future. Braydon Rice, of Woodstock, paid $70,000 to ensure the spring remains undeveloped. He said the community cares deeply about the spring beside Route 26 and he wanted to protect the land from any drilling that could have compromised it. He plans to put building restrictions on the deed as well as ground penetration limits to further protect the parcel should it ever change hands.
