Summer 2010
Shared Effort to Conserve a Community Treasure
Many community members have long enjoyed picnics and explorations along Black Island’s four miles of undeveloped shoreline—a tradition that will continue thanks to new MCHT conservation efforts.
Working with generous landowners through four complementary transactions, Maine Coast Heritage Trust is ensuring long-term protection of Black Island, a prominent 451-acre gem in the Gott Island archipelago off Mount Desert Island. Generations of families have enjoyed visiting the beloved community landmark, known for its pink granite, cobble beaches, and spruce and birch woodlands. That cherished tradition was at risk until MCHT worked with all the island’s landowners to restrict the amount and location of future development and ensure recreational access.
Later this month, Maine Coast Heritage Trust plans to acquire 120 acres at Black Island’s southernmost end, thanks to a bargain-sale offer from the conservation-minded Haskell family that owned the land for generations. The Trust used its new limited liability company (LLC) to purchase and temporarily hold the property while additional funds were being raised. “This project has generated tremendous community support,” notes David MacDonald, MCHT’s Director of Land Protection. “And the LLC proved a valuable addition to our conservation toolbox, enabling us to make a timely acquisition and help cover project costs by allowing some limited and carefully sited development on the private parcels.”
In December 2009, MCHT acquired adjoining Little Black Island from Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, which sold the island well below its market value to MCHT to ensure its permanent conservation.
On Black Island’s north end, MCHT worked with the Doering family and a private conservation buyer to secure a conservation easement that prevents development and ensures continued public access to 210 acres (encompassing the popular Quarry Wharf site where visitors enjoy beaches and historic remains of a quarrying operation, including a rail bed). More than 50 people lived on Black Island when quarrying was active in the late 1800s, and a school operated for more than a decade. The last year-round residents left Black in the 1930s, and now there’s only one seasonal (private) cabin remaining.
The Doering family that owns the cabin is working with MCHT and Acadia National Park to tighten an existing conservation easement, ensuring that any future development is carefully sited and scaled to blend with surrounding woodlands and the existing rustic camp. Additional easement restrictions on newly transferred lands near Butler Cove (along the western shore) allow the landowners to construct a single camp on a one-acre building envelope set back from the shore at least 350 feet.
MCHT will work with College of the Atlantic to inventory the island’s natural resources, and will use those findings to develop a management plan that allows continued public access while protecting sensitive natural resources and the needs of the island’s private landowners. The Trust welcomes the input and support from those who know and value Black Island; funds are still being raised to cover the purchase and stewardship costs, and management planning will continue in the coming year. Please contact staff at our MDI office at 244-5100 to help.
From MCHT’s Board Chair: The Gift of Good People
Celebrating our anniversary gives us a welcome opportunity to reflect on the contributions of those who have guided the Trust through its first four decades. Every organizational achievement during this time traces directly to the vision and wisdom of the Trust’s Board and Council members, and to the rapport they have with MCHT’s high-caliber staff. One Council member recently commented on the “symbiotic relationship between staff and board where the personalities just work. One of the great pleasures of serving MCHT,” he added, “is the interactions between board and staff.”
MCHT’s board members work hard, but find the company so stimulating and the mission so inspiring that they keep at it year after year. Council member Ed Woodsum, for example, chaired the board for nearly 30 years with grace and good humor. Even after the Trust instituted term limits in 1987, it was hard for board members to depart. Council member John Kauffman once observed “there’s an excitement in the Maine Coast Heritage Trust board that’s downright electric, a sense of mission and joy I’ve never seen equaled anywhere else.” The passion for place that board, council and staff members share is indeed energizing, and helps us persevere through challenges and setbacks.
Many of the Trust’s board and council members know the coast intimately through decades spent sailing, both the native Mainers and those who “wished they lived in Maine” (as Peggy Rockefeller was fond of saying). Council member Gordon Abbott Jr., for example, began sailing in Maine at age 12 and by the time he joined MCHT’s board in his 40s, he felt he “knew every rock and buoy on the coast!”
Board and Council members share a wealth of practical experience reflecting professional backgrounds ranging from law, business and medicine to lobstering and local land trust administration. This diverse mix helps ensure, in Council member Peter Quesada’s words, “vibrant debate in the context of great mutual regard.” Board members steer clear of mission creep but respond thoughtfully to the evolving demands of land conservation with what Quesada terms “open-minded conservatism.” While cautious and deliberate, they’ve been willing to take big risks at critical times—like purchasing the Bold Coast headlands and launching the Maine Land Trust Network, the nation’s first (and still largest) service bureau for local land trusts.
Having the dual roles now of Board Chair and Interim President, I am continually impressed and inspired by the wonderful synergy among board, council and staff—seeing how our sense of shared mission inspires commitment and creativity. With such a capable group of people working so well together, MCHT’s next 40 years look very bright.
A Time of Big Decisions: MCHT Milestones in the 1980s
The second article in a three-part historical overview celebrating MCHT’s 40th anniversary.
Maine Coast Heritage Trust took a “huge step forward” in 1985, recalls Council member Gordon Abbott, when the Board voted to accept the Trust’s first fee property (a 98-acre headland in Castine). The Lands Committee weighed this decision carefully and concluded that outright ownership required a major stewardship investment but ultimately afforded the greatest possible degree of land protection.
Passage that year of Maine’s Uniform Conservation Easement Act meant that land trusts were no longer confined to taking easements near existing land holdings. This legislative change stimulated creation of more local land trusts, with the total number doubling in two years—reaching 50 in 1987. MCHT’s board committed to support these emerging trusts with a dedicated staff position. “Helping form local land trusts is probably one of the most significant contributions we made,” observes longtime Board Chair Ed Woodsum. “The multiplier effect of what we’ve done will be tremendous.”
The rapid growth of local land trusts reflected widespread concern in Maine about sprawling development, unprecedented land speculation and diminishing access to cherished natural places. Citizens and organizations banded together to support a bond measure that would direct $35 million to secure some of Maine’s landmark properties. MCHT provided critical financial and logistical support for the first Land for Maine’s Future (LMF) bond, which voters overwhelmingly passed in 1987.
As speculative development continued to spread eastward, MCHT learned of two headlands along the Bold Coast in Washington County threatened with subdivision. On short notice, the Trust needed to decide whether to acquire these threatened lands, thereby getting into the real estate business. Council member Peter Quesada recalls what MCHT cofounder Peggy Rockefeller said in response to that difficult choice: “‘It might fail. It might even destroy the organization because it’s a big bet. But it’s something we ought to do: if we don’t, no one else will and it’s really important.’”
MCHT did purchase the Bold Coast headlands and—through that arduous but successful process—forged close alliances with individuals and communities downeast. Cutler lobsterman Jasper Cates, who helped lead the campaign to save Western and Great Heads, later observed, “You’ve got to have a hide as thick as [a] battleship… for this kind of thing, but if you know deep down in your heart that your cause is right and you’ve got people like Maine Coast Heritage Trust on your side, you’re going to win.”
“Perhaps [MCHT’s] greatest contribution is inspiring local action, giving people the tools they need, and helping them become active land conservationists. The person-to-person element is crucial. You can’t accomplish anything in conservation without people, and Maine Coast Heritage Trust has great strength and credibility with all kinds of landowners, from farmers to timber companies.” Lissa Widoff, former director of the Land for Maine’s Future Program (in Downeast magazine, April 1991)
“Western Head is not only one of the most beautiful headlands on the Down East coast…, it is also, for me and many people in Cutler, the heart of our spiritual home. Its loss would have been devastating to us.” Cutler native Delia Mae Farris
MCHT Helps Expand Wildlife Refuge
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service expanded its Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge with the purchase from Maine Coast Heritage Trust of a 9-acre parcel on Metinic Island and three entire islands: 12-acre Crow Island in the Muscle Ridge, 7-acre Compass Island in Penobscot Bay, and 8-acre Sheep Island in Steuben. These acquisitions bring the total number of protected wildlife islands within the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge to 53. The Refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan, published in 2005, recommended acquisition of all these islands. MCHT acquired the islands over several years through the cooperation of willing landowners in continued partnership with the Refuge. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation provided generous suppport to help the Refuge acquire Compass Island.
“These acquisitions help further the ongoing protection of one of Maine’s most fragile natural resources,” said MCHT Board Chairman Tom Ireland. “We are proud of our longstanding partnership with the Refuge to enhance and protect Maine’s nationally significant seabird nesting islands.”
MCHT also assisted USFWS with a loan to help secure its new headquarters and visitor center in Rockland, which will give the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge a stronger presence on the mainland—offering exhibits and educational programs, and housing its allied nonprofit, The Friends of Maine Seabird Islands. “This would not be happening,” notes refuge manager Beth Goettel, “without great help from our partners.”
New Conservation Opportunities on Mount Desert Island
Since its founding 40 years ago on Mount Desert Island, Maine Coast Heritage Trust has been working with land- owners and partners to protect the special character of the Acadia region. MCHT is proud to serve as the region’s local land trust, helping conserve cherished settings like Black Island (see cover story) and vulnerable lands within the boundary of Acadia National Park.
This summer, MCHT is focusing on several key parcels that—if saved—will afford significant community benefits to Island residents and visitors for generations to come. At the heart of this effort is Kitteredge Brook Forest between Town Hill and Somesville, an unfragmented, 500-acre parcel bordering Acadia National Park that the Trust has an option to acquire if it can raise the necessary funds. Negotiations are under-way on several other key properties as well, in locations such as MDI’s western shore, around estuaries like Northeast Creek, and including some of the island’s remaining farmland. Completing these projects will require $10 million in new capital, helped in large measure by generous challenge grants from an anonymous donor and the Pew Charitable Trusts. For more details on this exciting initiative, contact Sue Telfeian, Director of Development, at 729-7366 or our Somesville office at 244-5100.
Francis W. Hatch, Jr.
Memoriam
Maine Coast Heritage Trust lost a great friend and guiding light when Frank Hatch passed away this April. Through more than 25 years on MCHT’s Board and Council, Frank shared his remarkable combination of bold vision and practical action. In 1985, his family donated land in Castine that became MCHT’s first preserve (now known as Witherle Woods). Frank worked tirelessly for decades with friends, neighbors, and community members to advance conservation of the Bagaduce River whole place in and around Castine.
2010 Espy Land Heritage Award Winner
At this year’s Maine Land Conservation Conference in Topsham, MCHT presented its 2010 Espy Land Heritage Award to Don Hudson, who recently retired as President of Chewonki Foundation. Don has worked tirelessly for decades to integrate land conservation into environmental education and outdoor recreation projects statewide.
Staff News
MCHT’s Development Team welcomes two new staff members. Sarah Hale Krull, Foundations Manager, brings extensive experience with foundation giving gained in previous fundraising and grant writing roles, most recently with the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Sarah, an avid biker and gardener who has written two guides to mountain biking, lives with her husband and sons in Portland. Nicky Blanchard, Development Operations Manager, comes to MCHT from Colby College where she directed their Parent Giving Program. She worked previously for the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. Nicky holds an MA in Public Administration and greatly enjoys hiking and other outdoor pursuits.
