{"id":4892,"date":"2011-09-30T11:56:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T15:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4892"},"modified":"2011-10-03T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T12:58:09","slug":"another-north-woods-community-considers-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/09\/30\/another-north-woods-community-considers-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Another north woods community considers the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

NPR ran a telling and familiar-sounding story<\/a> from northern Maine this morning … northern Maine of the vast stretches of timberland, punctuated by paper mill towns.<\/p>\n

For generations, Maine’s North Woods have provided pulp for the state’s paper mills and created plenty of good jobs in an area with little other economic activity. But now the paper industry is struggling and a mill job is no longer a guarantee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Roxanne Quimby, here with Millinocket Lake guide Matt Polstein, wants to donate 70,000 acres of land to the National Park Service along with an endowment to manage what would be a national park in Maine's North Woods. (Susan Sharon for NPR)<\/p><\/div>\n

Reporter Susan Sharon found towns with 20 percent-plus\u00a0 unemployment, and\u00a0 new traction for an old idea. A private philanthropist wants to set tens of thousands of acres aside for wilderness preservation. The philanthropist is Roxanne Quimby, who started Burt’s Bees as a roadside stand 20 years ago…her national park campaign\u00a0 has also beena long haul, but she’s gaining.<\/p>\n

Most of\u00a0 Maine’s political\u00a0 leaders are still against the park plan, but according to Susan Sharon’s story,\u00a0 locals are beginning to look for alternatives to their idled paper mills:<\/p>\n

The Maine Legislature and the town of Millinocket recently passed resolves against the park, and most of the state’s congressional delegation has expressed opposition to it. But the local chamber of commerce and some other groups have endorsed a feasibility study. Quimby counts that as progress.<\/p>\n

“I think that I am starting to sense a shift in attitude with people who probably 10 years ago would have demonized me or demonized the beliefs that I had about conservation and recreation in the area,” she says, “but they’re sitting at the table with me now and talking about how can we make this work for everybody?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Adirondacks are much further down that road, and still unsure of the end point. The green community here —\u00a0 counting the Nature Conservancy and its allies, private landowners, and private timber holdings now under conservation easement — now is now collectively the largest landowner in the Park. Not the heritage lumber and paper companies.<\/p>\n

A reminder that the conversation continues in the latest issue of Adirondack Life, and tonight at 7:30 at the Newcomb VIC. Details in Brian’s post, below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NPR ran a telling and familiar-sounding story from northern Maine this morning … northern Maine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[10,4806,4817,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}