Stories and Updates from the Coast 2024
Alongside a growing and increasingly more diverse community of people who care about and are impacted by the health of our shared lands and waters, Maine Coast Heritage Trust is making sure conservation protects healthy ecosystems, fosters thriving communities, and deepens our connections to nature and one another.
Where Nature is Big and Bold
In the northeastern corner of the country, together with partners, Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) helped conserve thousands of acres on Maine’s iconic Bold Coast starting in the 1980s. Since then, we’ve continued protecting forested lands stretching to the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge.
In My Words
MCHT’s long-time stewardship director, Jane Arbuckle, passes the torch to Amanda Devine, who joined the leadership team in 2024.
Animal Personhood and Conservation
Freelance journalist Brandon Keim, inspired by encounters with wild animals at MCHT preserves, reflects on the scientific study of animal intelligence and what more of us are coming to understand about the thinking, feeling animals all around us and the imperative of conservation.
Sitting with Deep Time in Casco Bay
On a warm July morning, I walked half a mile down a grassy trail at Woodward Point Preserve in Brunswick to reach the rocky shore. My stroll through this 87.5-acre conserved peninsula felt, in a certain way, like time travel.
I passed first through meadows of newly blooming goldenrod; then through older stands of pine, ferns, and blueberry bushes; then to the mica-flecked edge of Woodward Cove that has stood against the tug of tides for millennia.
ART FROM THE COAST
“These murals are an homage to nature, the Wabanaki peoples of the midcoast Maine region, and the communal gathering around said nature to create spaces for inclusion, gardening, foodways, and self-growth.”
– Norma Randi Marshall, Artist
Regional Updates
Southern Maine update
We teamed up with Maine Beer Company to host a fundraising event to raise awareness about the importance of conservation in a changing climate.
Other projects in the area include:
- Partnering to conserve more than 47 acres in the upper reaches of the York River last January
- Helping to coordinate a gathering on Malaga Island for descendants of the islanders evicted from their homes by the State in 1912
Midcoast Maine & Penobscot Bay update
New infrastructure possible through a recent campaign at Aldermere Farm and Erickson Fields has allowed more space for farm tours and community members and organizations to gather.
Other projects in the area include:
- Collaborating with Tender Table and Kindling Collective to host a BIPOC campout on Monroe Island Preserve
- Fundraising to conserve Conary Point in Deer Isle, a place beloved by community members and artists and craftspeople from around the world
MDI-Area update
MCHT is currently fundraising to improve the accessibility and functionality of Stone Barn Farm’s trails and buildings, with hopes to one day offer an all-access path on the property.
Other projects in the area include:
- Gathering volunteers and MCHT staff to count fish at Seal Cove Pond, where we recently worked with the town of Tremont to construct nature-like fishways
- Caring for 20 places and over 30 miles of trails open to the public, including a new parking lot at Blue Horizons, a bog bridging project on the Cranberry Isles, and a series of cleanup events
Downeast update
Together with others managing land for public access in the Orange River watershed region, MCHT created and published a new website with information about the easy-to-access, easy-to-paddle, nine-mile flat-water Orange River Water Trail, and hosted a paddle for community members.
Other area projects include:
- Spending nearly two weeks re-routing trails and clearing downed trees to re-open the trail network at Frank E. Woodworth Preserve in Harrington
- Assisting the Forest Society of Maine in protecting 5,300 acres, expanding existing conservation land to create a larger, unbroken region of wild and ecologically vital habitat in the headwaters of the Narraguagus River
- Working with Northeast Wilderness Trust to conserve over 2,000 acres of forest adjacent to the Cutler Coast Public Reserved Land, advancing a rare opportunity to conserved thousands of acres near the coast and further protect one of the last places where inland forests connect to the sea
Learn more & get involved!
Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) is a nonprofit land conservation organization. Our work spans the Maine coast and extends up coastal rivers and into inland forests, benefiting communities throughout the state and the vitality of the region at large.
Thanks to our Donors
Everything you read about in this newsletter is possible thanks to the generous support of Maine Coast Heritage Trust donors.
Donors are creating more public access to the coast, strengthening coastal communities, making Maine more resilient to climate change, and so much more. Thank you to all who are a part of MCHT.
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