The Nature Conservancy in Maine - Lower Penobscot Forest Project

Help us protect the forests of the Lower Penobscot watershed

A remote pond within the Lower Penobscot Forest

To learn more about donating to the Lower Penobscot Forest Project, please contact Rod Vogel at (207) 729-5181 or rvogel@tnc.org.

Download the Lower Penobscot Forest Fact Sheet (213KB, .pdf)

Forests on the Edge: The Lower Penobscot watershed is home to the most threatened private forests in the nation.
This was the conclusion of a 2005 study by the US Forest Service that ranked watersheds around the country on the basis of the threat from housing development.

Visit Friends of Sunkhaze Meadows to learn more about the wildlife of the Lower Penobscot watershed. © Pam Wells/Friends of Sunkhaze

Maine Youth Fish and Game lodge at Pickerel Pond
Maine Youth Fish and Game Association maintains a lodge and runs educational programs at Pickerel Pond. © Margaret Pizer/TNC

Lower Penobscot Forest in the News

US aid may preserve huge Maine tract Boston Globe, December 23, 2007

Maine to receive $4.2M to protect forests Bangor Daily News, March 21, 2007

Candid Camera Bangor Daily News, November 15, 2006

Generosity transforms pond site for youths Bangor Daily News, August 24, 2006

Corridor of Conservation Bangor Daily News, June 8, 2006

Lower Penobscot Forest Project Components
Lower Penobscot Forest Reserve: 12,710 acres bordering Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The Conservancy will purchase a conservation easement on the land with the eventual plan to purchase the land itself.
Lower Penobscot Forest Easement: 24,557-acre working forest conservation easement to be purchased by the Conservancy for transfer to the State.
Amherst Tract: 4,974 acres to be conserved by a combination of fee and easement purchases made by Forest Society of Maine for transfer to the State.

Less than 15 well-paved highway miles separate the forests of the Lower Penobscot watershed from Bangor. Less than 10 minutes from these forests, planners have drawn the terminus of an interstate extension. A network of new timber roads throughout the property provides easy access for development. Signs of encroaching subdivisions are everywhere—new houses and “for sale” signs line the edge of Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to the north and Route 9 to the south.

In the shadow of this looming development lies a natural landscape shaped by ice and water. The retreat of the glaciers after the last ice age left a ridge, called Horseback Esker, where a glacial stream used to run. Groundwater draining through the glacial deposits feeds miles of wetlands, including a raised bog and a kettlehole bog. This land supports acres of old-growth spruce-fir forests and spruce flats, which are becoming rare in the Northeast, and the second largest red pine woodland documented in the state. Hidden trails lead to remote ponds, and Sunkhaze Stream supports a natural trout hatchery. On sections of the Union River, a paddler can go for miles without seeing signs of human impact.

Maine's Backyard

Thousands of school children enjoy their first taste of outdoor recreation in these woods and on these ponds. For a dollar each, Maine’s Youth Fish and Game Association offers over 500 members aged 15 and under the opportunity to learn about hunting, ice fishing, bird watching—even taxidermy.

“Any day of the winter, you are likely to see more than 100 school kids,” says warden Dave Georgia of the Maine Division of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “My mission is to get them outdoors and keep them enthusiastic.”

Changing the Conservation Landscape of Central Maine

The Lower Penobscot Forest Project is a partnership between the Conservancy and Forest Society of Maine that will conserve over 42,000 acres. This project will be is the window to a broader view of conservation in the region—a view that connects the wetlands and woods of Central Maine to the coastal forests and waters of Penobscot and Machias Bays.

The streams in of the Lower Penobscot Forests drain into Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge—founded in the late 1980’s when the Conservancy purchased over 10,000 acres of raised dome peatlands to protect them from peat mining. The Conservancy will now purchase a conservation easement on more than 12,000 acres along the southeast border of Sunkhaze to establish an ecological reserve.

This Lower Penobscot Forest Reserve will buffer Sunkhaze from development and conserve habitat for its diverse wetland and forest species. The reserve will border Department of Conservation lands and the Lower Penobscot Forest Easement, which will be conserved by an easement purchased by the Conservancy and transferred to the state. To the south, the remote ponds and red pine woodlands of the Amherst Tract will be conserved by fee and easement purchases by Forest Society of Maine. To the northeast, Lower Penobscot Forest lands neighbor those protected by the State and the Conservancy in the upper Machias River watershed.

To the west of Sunkhaze, the Penobscot River Restoration Project is slated to remove two dams from the river and bypass a third—reopening the river and its tributaries to eleven species of sea-run fish. The Lower Penobscot Forest Project will preserve the habitat being reopened for Atlantic salmon, shad, alewife and blueback herring along many of the streams and creeks of the watershed.

The Nature Conservancy is raising public and private funds for this project. Placing these forests under conservation is part of a larger vision of conserved lands stretching from Bangor to Acadia National Park. The opportunity to protect these forests will not be available much longer and the need to protect them from development could not be more urgent.

Download a map of the Lower Penobscot Forest Project

Regional Map showing Conservation Context

Nature picture credits: Clockwise from top. Photo © Bruce Kidman/TNC (view of the forests near Great Pond); Photo © Pam Wells/Friends of Sunkhaze (spotted salamander); Photo © Margaret Pizer/TNC (a remote pond within the lower Penobscot Forest)