Maine Coastal Climate Resilience & Land Protection

A More Resilient Maine

In a changing climate, conservation is one of our best tools to minimize damage to our communities and build resilience.

In Maine, where we have relatively intact lands, waters, and ecosystems, we are at an advantage in a changing climate. To ensure this remains true, and to enhance our resilience in the years to come, we’re protecting key lands and landscapes, helping ecosystems function better, and caring for conserved places to support wildlife and people.

We are working with individuals, communities, and partners on a wide range of projects, from supporting towns adapting to rising sea levels to advancing decades-long initiatives to protect some of the last significant wildlife corridors on the Eastern Seaboard.

Less Flooding, Less Storm Damage

Protecting natural lands, capable of absorbing precipitation, minimizes the amount of flooding communities experience as storms increase in frequency and intensity. Protecting land surrounding rivers minimizes the amount of water that enters the river and causes flooding downstream. Tidal marshes, another area of focus for MCHT’s conservation efforts, absorb storm surge, protecting our homes and towns.

Cleaner Water and Air

Ecosystems such as wetlands filter out pollutants such as sediments, nutrients, and heavy metals. Here in Maine, the most forested state, where ecosystems are relatively intact, we can protect the plants and natural systems that protect us in a changing climate.

Wildlife Surviving and Thriving

By conserving large blocks of connected habitat, we give plants and animals the opportunity to move around the landscape, which can be critical to their survival as they adapt to climate changes. Many animals must be able to move significant distances to complete their life cycles (think: sea run fish) and find water, food, and mates.

Curbing the Rate of Change by Protecting Plants Absorbing Carbon

While climate change is the direct result of too much carbon (Co2) in the atmosphere, trees, grasses, shrubs, and other plants actually hold on to this gas within their tissues and the ground. By protecting natural spaces, and thoughtfully managing them, we’re helping to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Conversely, when natural spaces are developed, greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere.

MCHT is playing a critical role in conserving and restoring coastal wetlands here in Maine, which has significant climate mitigation benefits that we’re learning more about every day.”

– Beverly Johnson, Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences at Bates College

Our Work Priorities

Marshes

We’re working with partners to conserve Maine’s most resilient marshes (marshes most likely to adapt to changes over time) to curb the impacts of climate change.

Marshes Initiative

Rivers

Rivers matter tremendously to the health of the coast in a changing climate. MCHT has identified five key Maine rivers with the best potential for protection and restoration, where we see opportunities to make a significant impact on the local and regional ecological health.

Rivers Initiative

Schoodic to Schoodic

Seventy-five percent of Maine’s native plants and animals are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We’ve been working in partnership with Frenchman Bay Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy, the State of Maine, and other partners to conserve key “stepping stones” of land to create a protected corridor for wildlife.

Schoodic Initiative

FEATURED STORY

Why Rivers Matter in a Changing Climate

Healthy, free-flowing rivers provide a ribbon of connected habitat, not only for fish, but for all wildlife species, who benefit from the cooler, moist habitat and depend on the water and food these rivers provide.

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FEATURED STORY

Farming with Climate Change in Mind

At our farm preserves in Rockport, Aldermere Farm and Erickson Fields, we’re advancing regenerative farming practices that result in increased carbon sequestration, water infiltration and retention, and maintenance of species and habitat diversity.

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