Two land trusts have secured a 1,843-acre parcel southeast of Moxie Pond and along the Appalachian Trail in a remote part of Somerset County, in what they called “a win for both people and nature.”
The Trust for Public Land, a national organization, and the Northeast Wilderness Trust, based in Vermont, announced last month their acquisition of the Moxie Pond Wilderness Preserve.
The deal with timberland management company Weyerhaeuser closed thanks to a $3.2 million fundraising effort, the organizations said in a news release.
It was supported by private dollars from individual donors and foundations, after federal funds originally set aside for the acquisition fell through. The groups worked together on fundraising; the Northeast Wilderness Trust is the property owner and steward.
The preserve will serve as a buffer for a 5-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail at the start of the 100-Mile Wilderness, the land trusts said. Both groups say protecting lands around the trail is a priority.
The new ownership will also guarantee an important regional snowmobile and ATV trail through a permanent easement conveyed to the state, said Lynnette Batt, a Farmington-based senior project manager with the Trust for Public Land.
The preserve will also offer public access for hunters, although Northeast Wilderness Trust has some restrictions on its properties, including a prohibition on predator hunting.
It adds to more than 20,000 acres of adjacent conserved land. The area is a mixture of federal, state and privately owned parcels, some of which the Trust for Public Land was involved in protecting.
The new preserve includes 37 acres of wetlands, 3 miles of brook trout streams and a mile of some of the last remaining undeveloped shoreline along Moxie Pond, in its southeast corner. The land lies in Bald Mountain Township T2 R3, an unorganized territory a few miles east of Caratunk, as the crow flies.
The property is to be managed as “wildland,” the land trusts said. That will entail a passive management approach called “rewilding” in which forests grow old.
“The project strikes a careful balance with Maine’s diversity of human and nonhuman stakeholders in mind, securing existing access while safeguarding more than 1,800 acres of forest that, as they rewild, will act as core habitat for wildlife and will naturally evolve into a future old-growth forest,” said Jon Leibowitz, president and CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust, in a statement. “The Preserve offers something to love to every Mainer who cherishes this precious landscape.”
Alex Littlejohn, director of conservation for Weyerhaeuser, called the project a “compelling conservation opportunity.”
The Trust for Public Land had originally been planning to acquire the land on behalf of the National Park Service. It entered into a purchase contract with Weyerhaeuser in 2023, Batt said.
The nonprofit was lined up to receive a $2.1 million grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the land would have become part of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
But before final approval, federal officials added a new, last-minute requirement that local and state governments express their lack of objection for a round of land acquisition projects funded through the program.
In this case, the relevant local governing authority was the Somerset County Board of Commissioners. Three of five commissioners refused to sign off on a “no objection letter,” citing their qualms about the federal government taking over Maine’s land and the prohibition of hunting and other strict regulations the National Park Service imposes on its land.
“We had strong local support, so we felt good about moving forward with the project with a different avenue,” Batt said in an interview by telephone Thursday. “Northeast Wilderness Trust, last fall, stepped in to help us pivot the project to private funding.”
Mark Leathers, president of the Lake Moxie Camp Owners Association, was among those who urged the commissioners not to derail the project. Leathers, also a forester and master Maine guide, asked the commissioners to leave politics out of their decision and consider the people who live near the proposed project.
“This is one parcel in Maine where the ecological, recreational, and aesthetic values far outweigh the timber value,” Leathers said in a statement shared by the land trusts. “My family has savored this view almost at a spiritual level for six generations, since 1929, and now it will be preserved forever.”