MAINE PUBLIC • March 10, 2022
Another 21,000 acres have been permanently protected from development in Maine's western mountains. The Grafton Notch Forest was considered a crucial gap in a conservation corridor that connects hundreds of thousands of acres across Maine and New Hampshire. Most of the land will remain as working forest, but more than 6,000 acres will be managed as wilderness. The project took three years to complete and involved multiple partners and supporters who raised nearly $11 million dollars in private funds to purchase a conservation easement. Karin Tilberg of the Forest Society of Maine says the result is the protection of some of Maine's most spectacular scenery and opportunities for remote recreation. Public access, she says, is now permanently guaranteed.