Moosehead Forest
In 2009, Maine's Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) approved a precedent-setting Concept Plan for real estate investment trust Plum Creek's lands in the Moosehead Lake region. The approval permanently conserved more than 400,000 acres of forest, watershed and shoreline, and rare and exemplary natural communities. The Concept Plan limits development to no more than 4% of the lands. The Forest Society of Maine has agreed to hold and oversee the 363,000-acre conservation easement that is now part of one of the largest assemblages of recreational lands and infrastructure in the nation.
View Lands Conserved by the Moosehead Forest Project
Moosehead Forest Collaborative Campaign
Noteworthy Outcomes of the Moosehead Forests Conservation Project
- The 407,000 acres of newly conserved lands, centered on Moosehead Lake, connects to other already-conserved properties, resulting in a network of connected conservation lands totaling nearly 2.25 million acres in the heart of Maine’s Great North Woods, and stretching from the St. John and Allagash rivers, across the Moosehead Lake region, to Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park, and south and west to the Bigelow Preserve. Read more…
LURC Decision Under Review (2011)
On April 7, 2011, the Maine Superior Court released its decision on the appeal of LURC’s approval of the Concept Plan for Plum Creek’s lands in the Moosehead region. Of the six points challenged by those who were appealing LURC’s decision, the judge upheld LURC on the five points that focus on the material aspects of the Concept Plan, including those relating to the 363,000-acre conservation easement that FSM holds and enforces. Read more…
FSM Takes Enforcement Action (2010)
In August 2010 it was discovered that Plum Creek Timber Company had conducted a timber harvest near a rare plant site in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the Moosehead Region Conservation Easement. Read more…
Overseeing the Moosehead Region Conservation Easement (2010)
FSM is five months into its role of overseeing the 363,000-acre, Moosehead Forest conservation easement, which was established by Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commissioners last October with their approval of a concept plan for Plum Creek Timber’s lands in the Moosehead Lake region. Read more…
LURC Approves Concept for Plum Creek’s Lands in the Moosehead Region (2009)
Two million acres of conserved lands in Maine’s North Woods. That is what Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission created on September 23, 2009 when it approved an historic Concept Plan covering more than 400,000 acres of lands owned by Plum Creek in the Moosehead Lake region. Read more…
