Finding the best path

Last week, proponents of a plan to create a new national park in the Katahdin region delivered a petition containing the names of more than 13,000 supporters to members of Maine's congressional delegation. Of the 13,580 signatures on the petition, only 2,750 were from residents of Maine. Even if all the Maine signers are voters, which is unlikely, they represent only .3 percent of the state's electorate.

Philanthropist Roxanne Quimby – whose desire to leave a conservation legacy in Maine, including on Mount Desert Island, is admirable – controls nearly 70,000 acres in the area desired by park proponents. But there are also landowners who control tens of thousands of acres of land in that area who oppose the creation of a national park.

Lucas St. Clair, Quimby's son, who manages some 120,000 acres she owns in Maine, has been praised by sportsmen for re-opening portions of her land for hunting, ATV and snowmobile use. But a national park designation could bring much of that to a halt. And federal control minimizes local input into management decisions that affect surrounding communities.

There has been some discussion about having Quimby's lands east of Baxter State Park designated a national monument as a preliminary move. While creating a new national park requires an act of Congress, a monument can be created by executive action by the president.

Before the president or Congress act, however, one question needs to be answered first. Are those lands east of Baxter State Park so unique, their scenic attributes so exemplary, their resources so threatened that only federal ownership would provide the proper protection? Does creating a national park justify the eventual usurpation of private property owned by unwilling sellers and does it warrant the wholesale displacement of the multiple-use culture that has protected and cherished that land for generations?

Certainly the lofty heights of the Katahdin massif and surrounding lands in Baxter State Park are extraordinary. But they already are protected and wisely administered here in Maine.

That park's founder, Gov. Percival Baxter, once wrote “No one feels more strongly against the federal government invading the state than I do ... whatever parks we have in Maine in my opinion should be state rather than national parks.”

Selling the idea of a national park is easy because there's no need to explain what that means to people. But the merits of protecting Quimby’s lands in ways that respect Maine traditions should not be unexplored due to the relative difficulty of explaining it. The challenge then is to find the wisdom and foresight to create a Maine-based entity to protect the culture, as well as the land in northern Maine.

Federal protection of Acadia on the coast, instituted in an era before the state was in a position to act, has been a tremendous success. But as Percival Baxter knew full well, that doesn't mean it is the best path to follow for the Katahdin region.