by Karin R. Tilberg
Down East Books, 2024
Anyone with an interest in Maine’s storied conservation history will want to add Loving the North Woods: 25 Years of Historic Conservation in Maine to their book collection. Karin R. Tilberg’s examination of a particularly complex period of land ownership change in northern Maine is deeply informative and inspiring, weaving together the economic changes that triggered divestment of large tracts of land and the response from the conservation community. Tilberg retired from a long tenure as president of Forest Society of Maine in 2024, and she has written this book – part memoir, part historic chronicle – with an insider’s view.
Tilberg sets the stage with an overview of the ecological importance of Maine’s North Woods: the approximately 12 million acres of largely unfragmented forests, which hold globally significant habitat for such iconic species as moose, Canada lynx, and Atlantic salmon. She recognizes the Wabanaki – a confederation of the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot nations – as the first people to call this region home; as stewards of these lands for millennia, their deep relationship with and knowledge of the region are intricately connected to its past, present, and future.
At the start of Tilberg’s treatise, however, in 1990, most of these vast woodlands were owned by about a dozen paper companies during a time when there was an economic advantage for them to control at least a portion of the raw timber that supplied their mills. Market changes in the 1980s and growing investor interest in owning timberland led to abrupt changes in land ownership.
“From 1990 through 1999 approximately 9.1 million acres involving thirty-four land transfers of ten thousand or more acres took place in Maine. In other words, over half of Maine’s forestland changed hands during that decade,” Tilberg writes. Later, she describes a period of great public interest – from small local communities to the national stage – in what would become of Maine’s North Woods: “It was a heady time, a frightening time, and a time infused with tensions not only about residents’ concerns about public access, wildlife habitat, recreational values, and government control but also about concerns that centered on the future of the forest products industry, a backbone of the Maine economy.”
Concern rose across Maine that short-term management interests would lead to more land sales, increased forest fragmentation, and loss of access. Conservation groups responded, working with state and federal agencies, legislators, private donors, and representatives of local communities and businesses to raise funds, craft conservation plans, and negotiate deals to protect the region from development and fragmentation. From 1990 to 2015, the amount of land conserved in Maine increased from 5 percent of the state’s total area to 20 percent – some 4 million acres.
As a Maine-based conservationist, I enjoyed gaining deeper insight into the inner workings of these land deals. A vast network of professionals joined forces to craft the collaborative work described in each chapter. It is intricate, delicate work built on years of relationship building, negotiation, and addressing conflict, and Tilberg captures the complexity of this time well. Occasionally, I found myself wanting to know more about the personalities that may have served as obstacles, but Tilberg focuses on celebrating individuals who drove much of the success and honoring the mentors she engaged with along the way.
Each chapter opens with a poem Tilberg has written. Although some readers may find the poems a distraction, they serve as a reminder that these vast woodlands – too often reduced to lines on a map and a series of financial transactions – are also a place of what Tilberg calls “green magic.” Engaging people on the land, immersing them in the waterways, and having deep conversations while camping and hiking in the remotest of woods were key to inspiring the tremendous funds and dedication needed to make these large land deals succeed.
Maine has entered a new era of land conservation, one that is beginning to address the history of colonization and impacts on Wabanaki people. Stories of restoring cultural access and returning land to Wabanaki tribes are certain to be important threads in the future of conservation in Maine. All proceeds of the book will be donated to further conservation in the North Woods as well as to the Wabanaki Land Return Fund.