2025 Swan Internship Announcement

December 11, 2024 By Kassie

Forest Society of Maine

2025 Swan Internship Program
Applications review begins: January 31, 2024

The Forest Society of Maine (FSM) is a state-wide land trust focused on Maine’s North Woods. FSM helped pioneer landscape-scale forestland conservation through development and implementation of conservation easements to sustain ecological, economic, cultural, and recreational values of Maine’s forests. Since the organization was founded in 1984, FSM has helped conserve more than one million acres of forestland. FSM strives to encourage thoughtful dialogue and conservation actions that encompass the full array of interests and ownerships in Maine’s North Woods.

The Swan Internship Program provides a range of professional experiences to expand student skill sets by exposing them to land conservation and easement stewardship. The successful student applicant will receive broad exposure to FSM’s work and a variety of training opportunities in both office and field settings.

Interested applicants should have an interest in land conservation and stewardship, be able to perform physically demanding field work, and be comfortable with office tasks.

Qualifications:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Comfortable working outside in remote locations
• Familiarity with or willingness to learn how to use data collecting technology in the field
• Computer and data management skills (GIS and mapping a plus)
• Dependable and self-motivated
• Superb listener
• Must have reliable transportation (please note that housing is not provided)

Schedule and Compensation:

• Specific start and end dates are flexible, running for 10 weeks, May to September.
• ~ 40 hours/week, with weekly schedule determined by supervisor. Some weekend and evening hours may be required.
• $16.00/hour, with a maximum of $6,400 for the summer.

To apply:
Please submit a cover letter, résumé, and contact information for two references to Kristen Hoffmann – kristen@fsmaine.org. Include in your cover letter an explanation of how this internship relates to your academic and career goals and/or how your values, interests, and aspirations led you to apply for this internship position.

New FSM President/CEO Announced

October 22, 2024 By Annie

Fish River Lakes Conservation Easement Completed

June 18, 2021 By Annie

PRESS RELEASE:

The Forest Society of Maine announced the completion of a forest conservation easement on lands owned by Irving Woodlands in the Fish River Chain of Lakes region in Aroostook County, Maine. This permanent easement, encompassing some 16,900 acres, is strategically located to provide natural resource protections for the lands around Mud Lake, Cross Lake, and Square Lake—known to many as the Fish River Chain of Lakes. Going forward the Forest Society of Maine has the responsibility of stewarding the permanent working forest conservation easement.

“These lands support many conservation values including diverse plant and wildlife habitats, including streams that are home to brook trout, rainbow smelt, and landlocked salmon,” stated Karin Tilberg, Forest Society of Maine President/CEO. “We are tremendously pleased to have worked with the Irving team and through the Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC) process to develop a meaningful conservation easement for these lands.”

The conservation easement ensures the forests won’t be developed or converted to other uses not compatible with sustainably managed forests. It protects the majority of the shoreline around Square Lake and Carry Pond and the streams that feed them and requires that all forestry activities are implemented as part of a forest management plan. The easement also creates a permanent right of pedestrian public access on the lands for low intensity outdoor recreation.

The Fish River Conservation Easement was developed during a public process connected with the Lake Concept Plan developed by Irving Woodlands and approved in late 2019 by LUPC. “We are pleased to announce the signing of our Conservation Easement with the Forest Society of Maine as a component of the Fish River Chain of Lakes Concept Plan,” said Anthony Hourihan, Director Land Development of Irving Woodlands, “Responsible, well-planned development will provide new recreational and economic opportunities in Aroostook County while ensuring important conservation values are maintained for the long term. The Forest Society of Maine has been a great partner through this process by balancing the need for conservation with the need to maintain working forest which supports a critical industry in the County.”

A map showing conserved areas around Fish River Chain of Lakes. — (The light green areas indicate the land within the Fish River conservation easement.)

FSM Featured in PAWS Trails

February 3, 2021 By Erica

When the editor of PawsTrails Explorer magazine approached me about writing an article on the success of working forestland conservation in Maine, it was autumn 2019. The piece finally went live in December 2020. Scrolling through it, that first time, I was struck by all that has happened in the intervening months. In more ways than one, I don’t feel like the same person who wrote this.

I was asked to answer a question. How did Maine, in less than three decades, manage to conserve 3,000,000 acres? The story that I told—the story that was told to me—was about consensus. It wasn’t a perfect consensus. While I was not present for the events described, I suspect that important voices were probably not heard, or even offered a seat at the table, as some of these enormous decisions about the future of Maine lands were being made. It is a tremendous understatement to say that I omitted pieces and players from a larger and more complicated narrative than I had space or time to delve into.

What has always compelled me about the Forest Society of Maine’s mission is that it acknowledges that different people can love a place for different reasons. In the article, I quote Jay Espy as saying that, “People recognized that there would need to be a land trust different from any other that had come before.” I believe that there was and is still a need for organizations like FSM, that do not see “conservation” as “land that is empty of people.”

The story of land conservation in Maine is, at its core, the story of a critical mass of individuals who took a hard, honest look into the future. They looked, and they saw with clear eyes that it was possible to lose the things they valued most. This is (some of) what happened, next:

http://www.pawstrails.com/magazine/forest-conservation-maine-us-by-erica-cassidy-dubois/

Sending warm wishes to all reading this for good health and happiness in 2021.

My very best, Erica

Capturing the Grafton Landscape

October 22, 2020 By Annie

Article originally published in the 2020 fall edition of Forest View, FSM’s biannual newsletter.

Sunrise over the Swift Cambridge River looking east over Popple Dam Rd in Grafton Township, Maine. Photo by Jerry Monkman, EcoPhotography.

Sometimes the best way to depict the essence of a place is not with words but with images. That is why photographer Jerry Monkman can be found waiting on a mountain summit before dawn with multiple cameras, ready to catch the first glow of light that seeps over the horizon, or on the shore of a tree-lined pond as evening light softens and fades. Dawn and dusk are excellent times to photograph, Jerry says, because this is when the landscape is the most dramatic and colorful. As a conservation photographer that specializes in scenic landscapes, his images grace the publications and websites of many conservation organizations and help to tell the stories of untrammeled places across Maine and New England.

This summer, the Forest Society of Maine (FSM) commissioned Jerry to showcase the beauty of the 21,300-acre Grafton Forest project which FSM is working to conserve. Jerry says that as he roamed the Grafton Forest lands he heard coyotes yip and howl in the distance and noted that there was moose sign everywhere. He describes York Pond as, “small and beautiful, idyllic and quiet, populated by beaver and ducks.”

With his photos, Jerry hopes to inspire people to care about natural and forested landscapes. At Grafton Forest, he spent hours driving dirt roads and hiking side trails, scouting the exact location from which to take the above shot. His images help us understand, even if we have never been there, what it feels like to watch the sun rise over the Mahoosuc mountains while shreds of mist float above the Swift Cambridge River. He’s spent more than 30 years looking through the lens of a camera, in all kinds of weather and locations. Being in remote places, like the rugged forests of western Maine, can be stressful—but it can also be meditative, and Jerry can’t imagine doing anything else.

“It’s my way of showing passion for wild places and open spaces,” he says. Now having hiked the ridgelines around Grafton Forest, Jerry can see that FSM’s project is an important one, “because conserving the lower slopes of one of the famed sections of the Appalachian Trail will also conserve the views from those peaks.”