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Maine
Implements New Forest Rules On October 1,
revisions to Maine’s Forest Management Act took effect, tightening
stipulations surrounding clearcutting on all ownerships larger than
100 acres. The standards
regulate any clearcut on such ownerships larger than five acres,
requiring 250-foot separation zones between treated areas and setting
new requirements on the number, size, and quality of residual trees. Any clearcut larger than 20 acres now requires a harvest
plan—the minimum had formerly been 35 acres—and clearcuts larger
than 75 acres are subject to different management criteria than
smaller ones. Clearcuts
larger than 250 acres are prohibited.
The Maine Forest Service’s educational meetings to date
reveal concern, as well as plain confusion, over how the “separation
zone” criteria will affect smaller landowners. Our
latest information is that Jonathan Carter’s new anti-clearcut
referendum language is still pending review at Maine’s Department of
State but that Carter hopes to have petitioners gathering qualifying
signatures at the State’s polling places at the November 2 election. A generally skeptical article in the September 22 Portland
[Maine] Press Herald suggests that, following the ballyhoo
surrounding Carter’s 1996 initiative, perhaps Maine voters are tired
of him. The Maine Forest
Products Council, however, warns that Connecticut “philanthropist”
Donald Sussman, who bankrolled the 1996 initiative, appears ready to
put down more money for the new one. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
Inc. (FRA) |
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