Brooklin 
Recent Press Releases — July 10, 2008
Blue Hill Heritage Trust Receives Grants for Conservation Planning
BLUE HILL – The Blue Hill Heritage Trust has received three grants to support conservation planning efforts. The Maine Coast Protection Initiative’s Implementation Program and the Maine Community Foundation’s Ocean Ledges Fund have each awarded $5,000 to help the Trust identify, research and describe priority conservation areas. Additionally, the Hancock County Fund at the Maine Community Foundation has granted $1,500 to help produce detailed maps of these areas.
Blue Hill Heritage Trust works with willing landowners to conserve land on the Blue Hill Peninsula. While the beauty and rich culture of this area is undeniable, every acre cannot and should not be conserved. Land conservation requires making decisions, creating priorities and balancing needs and resources. There are many perspectives to be considered in this process. Ecological considerations often rise to the top, but recreational, scenic and cultural values are also important, particularly to a community organization like the Trust. While in the past, conservation often concentrated on protecting individual endangered species and their habitats, there has been a shift in recent decades to protecting ‘functional ecological systems’, or more simply put, ‘whole places’.
A few years ago, in an effort to focus conservation efforts by identifying places on the Peninsula with multiple conservation values, the Trust began conservation planning for its six town service area. Grants from the Maine Coast Protection Initiative and MaineCF’s Ocean Ledges Fund have allowed the Trust to hire Janet McMahon, an experienced and well-known ecologist in Maine, to provide a more objective assessment of the area and help finalize a strategic conservation plan for the Blue Hill Peninsula. Support from MaineCF’s Hancock County Fund will allow the Trust to organize and communicate this information through a series of maps.
This conservation plan will be an invaluable tool for ensuring that the Trust fulfills its mission to conserve land and water of special ecological, natural, agricultural, scenic, cultural and recreational significance in the towns of Blue Hill, Brooklin, Brooksville, Sedgwick, Surry and Penobscot and expends resources efficiently as land prices rise and development pressures increase. For more information about this project, contact the Trust’s office at 374-5118.
The Maine Coast Protection Initiative is a first-of-its kind public-private partnership designed to increase the pace and quality of land protection by enhancing the capacity of Maine’s conservation community to preserve the unique character of the Maine Coast. The Maine Community Foundation has been partnering with donors and community groups for 25 years to strengthen Maine through grants and scholarships.
More Press Releases
- August 20, 2009
Landowners and Blue Hill Heritage Trust Offer Rare Glimpse of Pristine Pitch Pine Woodland - June 1, 2009
BHHT Patten Stream Preserve awes native plant enthusiasts - July 28, 2008
Opening of New Trail Section on Blue Hill Mountain - July 15, 2008
"Window on the Harbor" Protected by Conservation Easement Gift - June 17, 2008 – Bangor Daily News
Blue Hill: Land trusts poised to buy, conserve island (PDF 84K)
