Katahdin Woods: A Gift to America

Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is literally a gift to America.

Burt’s Bees entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby and her family gifted these lands to the United States government to protect nature in Maine’s North Woods for future generations.¹ Henry David Thoreau sat under trees like these as he wrote of the Northeast’s beauty. Teddy Roosevelt summited Katahdin’s namesake mountain. And lynx, bear, moose and birds like gray jays, boreal chickadees and the American three-toed woodpecker all make their home here.²

The Threat to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument

Last year, the Trump administration reviewed federal protections for 27 national monuments, including Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

Interior Secretary Zinke did not recommend shrinking the overall size of Katahdin as he did with Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments. But the secretary also called for “active timber management” that could signal new commercial logging in this pristine place.³

Commercial logging, now prohibited within Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, could mar the beautiful lands Roxanne Quimby gifted our country. The area’s wildlife — and especially solitary lynx — need the habitat afforded by these woods and are not suited to commercial logging’s noise and disruption.

How You Can Help

Let’s protect this gift to wildlife and to future generations of Americans.

Sign our petition to the US Forest Service opposing any permitting of commercial logging on the federal lands of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

Your signature today will help raise the alarm about the threat to Katahdin and mobilize opposition to destructive new commercial logging in this special place.

Sign the Petition

Notes

^1. Lucas St. Clair, President, Elliotsville Plantation Inc., “Testimony for House Natural Resources Federal Lands Subcommittee: Oversight Hearing on the Antiquities Act,” House Natural Resources Committee, May 2, 2017.

^2. Nick Sambides Jr., “Visits To Maine’s New National Monument Quadruple But Critics Say Turnout ‘Underwhelming’” Bangor Daily News, November 30, 2017.

^3. Staff, “Future remains uncertain for Katahdin Woods and Waters,” Mainebiz. December 6, 2017.