America’s Great Outdoors focuses on the Northern Forest

October 19, 2011

According to a recent progress report on America’s Great Outdoors, the northern forest of New England and New York will be one of five landscape-scale conservation initiatives in the coming year.

Downeast Lakes Land Trust appreciates the partnership and support we receive from Maine and federal agencies as we pursue our locally-led landscape conservation vision.  The forests around Grand Lake Stream, Maine are one of the best conservation opportunities in the country!

The America’s Great Outdoors Initiative is designed to reconnect Americans to the natural world and support thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity through conservation and recreation.  We have an extraordinary opportunity to accomplish this goal in Grand Lake Stream, where local people are strongly connected to the outdoors.  People travel here from around the country and the world because of our long heritage as a destination for outdoor recreation.

UPDATED October 25, 2011
Today Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar highlighted two Maine projects in advance of releasing a 50 state report on the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.  The Downeast pilot project of the Keeping Maine’s Forests effort is an initiative of Downeast Lakes Land Trust and our neighbors, seeking a cooperative approach to landscape scale forest management to benefit fish and wildlife habitat, public recreation, and the forest economy.  Keeping Maine’s Forests also includes a western Maine pilot project that emulates cooperative Atlantic salmon restoration efforts pioneered in Downeast Maine by Project SHARE.  The other Maine project featured in Secretary Salazar’s announcement is the Penobscot River restoration project to benefit Atlantic salmon.