Maine, ME
| Maine |
11/6/2012 |
Bond for the Land for Maine's Future program |
$5,000,000 |
$5,000,000 |
About the Campaign:
In a bipartisan effort, Maine legislators approved a $5 million bond for the November ballot to replenish Land for Maine’s Future (LMF), the state's land conservation program. Since 1987, voters have approved five bonds for LMF, always by large margins. This year's amount is smaller than previous bond authorizations, but will sustain the program until the state’s budget picture improves.
As in the past, the ballot measure campaign is supported by a broad and diverse coalition, including The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Maine Audubon, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and the Appalachian Mountain Club.
What's At Stake
Maine's economy and way of life is based on protecting its natural resources and quality of place. The livelihoods of Maine people, and the outdoor recreation they love, is threatened by the sale and subdivision and sale of forests, farms, and working waterfronts. Across the state, access for recreational users is increasingly limited.
For more than two decades, the Land for Maine's Future program (LMF) has helped ensure the state’s long-term environmental and economic health by conserving key assets like family farms, working forests, waterfronts for commercial fishing, and recreation sites all across Maine. At the same time it has preserved wildlife habitat, guaranteed access to lakes, rivers, and the ocean, and provided places for Maine people to hike, hunt, fish, camp and paddle.
Voters have overwhelmingly passed LMF bonds: $35 million in 1987, $50 million in 1999, $12 million in 2005, $20 million in 2007, and $9.75 million in 2010; and municipalities invest their own tax dollars in support of LMF projects.
However, funds for LMF have been depleted. Citizens, towns, and landowners around the state continue to approach LMF with critical conservation projects, but LMF cannot help until funds are renewed. Without additional funding, Maine will continue to lose family farms, commercial fishing access, working forests, snowmobile trails, shoreline access, and traditional hunting grounds.
Democrat and Republican legislators consistently show strong support for this highly popular program, which has conserved lands in every county. It has protected more than 530,000 acres, including mountain summits, rivers, lakes, wildlife habitat, forests, farms, working waterfronts and shoreline.
Lands conserved through LMF are open to the public and secure access for hunting, fishing, and trapping, serving all Maine citizens--those who fish, hike, farm, raft, bike, hunt, camp, and snowmobile. Through conservation easements, it has kept forests and farms working, instead of being fragmented by development, allowing the land to stay in private hands.
The program has been an incredibly effective use of taxpayer dollars, leveraging nearly $150 million of federal, local and private funds. Since 2000, every LMF dollar has brought in three dollars of matching funds.
For a list of projects funded by LMF, go the LMF Project Center at www.maine.gov/spo/lmf.
Get Involved in the Local Campaign:
Contact Diano Circo, Project Manager, The Trust for Public Land, at 207-772-7424 ext. 3 or diano.circo@tpl.org.
Get Involved with the Conservation Campaign:
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