York Town News
Mount A to the Sea raises $17 million, protects 1,600 acres
By Melissa Wood
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, pictured here, was joined by state and local officials as well as former Gov. Angus King to celebrate the $17 million raised so far by the Mount Agamenticus to the Sea Initiative to protect the largest unfragmented coastal forest between Acadia and the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Photo by Melissa Wood
YORK - We have the planet on loan, and it's our obligation to hand it over in better shape than we found it.
That's how former Gov. Angus King described his take on land preservation to the 100 people gathered at the Mount Agamenticus Lodge on Saturday, May 19.
"We're doing this because we're thinking about the future," he said. "We're thinking about generations that are yet unborn."
King, who is trustee of the Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, joined Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and local preservationists to announce that more than $17 million had been raised by joint conservation efforts in the Mount Agamenticus to the Sea (MTA2C) Initiative.
The four-year campaign not only exceeded the initial fundraising goal of $10 million, but half of the money raised was in land donations protecting 1,652 acres in 33 properties. That brings the total open space protected to 11,637 acres in a targeted area of 48,000 acres that includes Mount Agamenticus, the York River, Brave Boat Harbor estuary, Cutts Island and Gerrish Island.
The MTA2C Initiative is a coalition of 10 organizations including government agencies, statewide land protection groups and three local land trusts. It was established in 2002 with the realization that a large vision and collaborative effort was needed in order to protect the region.
Committee Chair Helen Winebaum said the funds have already been raised to protect another 2,000 acres by 2009. She said it takes a long time to put protections in place because, although the region is a very valuable unfragmented forest, the largest coastal forest between Acadia National Park and the New Jersey Pine Barrens, "the underlying ownership is fragmented," she said, "with relationships going back many, many years."
Collins called the group's efforts an inspiration.
"What makes it more remarkable is that you did it in a part of the state where development pressures are so high," she said. "I'm told that this region has the greatest number of threatened and endangered species in the state."
Kittery Town Manager Jonathan Carter confirmed the high rate of growth in the region, citing statistics that showed during the last decade that while York Country grew by 13 percent, the population growth for the six communities in the initiative area - York, Kittery, Eliot, Wells, South Berwick and Ogunquit - averaged out at 22 percent.
"Growth became the predator of land and natural resources in this area," he said.
Both King and Collins praised the organizations and towns that have worked together in these ongoing preservation efforts.
"It should serve as a national model for other efforts to conserve natural resources within the rapidly developing coastal zone communities in the United States," said Collins.
King said that partnership was one of "the four Ps" that made the project a success so far, which also include plan, perseverance and passion.
"Six towns worked together," said King. "That never happens in Maine; ask Governor Baldacci."
King said he was reminded of the play "Our Town," which he recently saw. He described a scene at the end of the play when the characters have died and are talking to each other in the cemetery. One character wants to go back to the living, but realizes that she can't.
Neither can we, King said.
"Part of that is thinking what we can do for the next generation," he said, adding that someday in the future families would walk up the road to mountain, "and they won't have heard of any of us, but what we do will benefit their lives."
