Morning Sentinel
Quality of Place
Maine is changing, so time to define what we want to protect is now
George Smith Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 12/05/2007

The sun had just dipped below the tree line when the coyotes started howling. The pack was excited about something -- yipping and yelping its way down the ridge -- and got an answering howl from across the stream. On my deer stand, with darkness closing in and the coyotes approaching, my shivers might not have been caused by the cold.

I wonder if all the folks working on "quality of place" know about coyotes? Would they be excited or fearful as these beasts bore down on them in the dark woods? How about on the streets of Portland?

Are coyotes part of what defines Maine's quality of place? Some would say yes, they are beautiful creatures whose arrival added excitement to the forests of Maine. Others say no, they're vicious predators who take down deer and eat them alive, not to mention the rabbits, grouse, turkeys, cats and dogs they kill.

Let's divide up. People who love coyotes on the left. People who hate coyotes on the right. The rest of you ambivalent folks step aside as we prepare for battle.

Throughout Maine, differing visions of the state we live in and the state we want to live in have divided us in just this way.

You see this all around us, in the fight over Plum Creek's Moosehead Region Plan, over the location of wind power turbines, over school consolidation, over health, tax and transportation issues, over bear baiting and coyote controls and boat launches.

The hearings of the Land Use Regulation Commission on Plum Creek's Moosehead Plan may dominate the news this week, but other compelling processes are unfolding that also will determine the economic and recreational future of our state and each offers new arenas for conflict and disagreement.

I see hope for the future in the success of a task force organized by Gov. John Baldacci to address conflicts and competition for access and use of public lands. The task force includes groups that have been battling for years, but it tackled the problems and issues in a spirit of cooperation that has carried over to its remarkable recommendations. The bottom line: They are agreeing to be agreeable in the future. And they have recommended a number of innovative ways to do that.

Other issues remain contentious. A large group of volunteers has begun working with the state Department of Conservation on a 10-year plan for boating access statewide -- one of the most difficult issues in our state. At the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, a task force has just issued its recommendations on deer wintering area and coyote predation -- and there will be some howling over those.

The governor's Quality of Place Committee soon will issue its findings and recommendations. And GrowSmart Maine's Quality of Place initiative continues to be debated separate and distinct from what the governor is doing. The biggest fight is about an increase in the lodging tax.

Even native Mainers have very different views of their state -- dependent on where they were raised and now live -- and that makes the debate over quality of place so intriguing.

There's more, but you get the idea. We love Maine and we love to talk about it! We love to fight about it! We're like a pack of howling coyotes running through the woods. Yip! Yip! Yip!

Unfortunately, we're having so much fun and running so fast we're missing a lot. Maine is changing and we are powerless to stop it. While we fight and fiddle, my Maine disappears.

For example, I see a diminishment of the forest products industry and a rising interest on the part of new forest landowners to make money from recreation on their property. That will be a wrenching change for those of us who enjoy the outdoors.

I see the continued loss of farms and open space and its devastating impact on habitat and recreation. Walk through the woods out here in Mount Vernon with me and count the cellar holes.

I see the loss of small schools and small villages. Big has somehow become beautiful. All around me larger institutions are being proposed that are removed from the people, be they schools, jails, or even services like emergency dispatching.

Yet we don't see much beyond what is in front of us -- what each of us experiences every day. And even those experiences are open to differing interpretations.

Can we set aside our differences in time to notice the cumulative impacts of change in our state and protect that quality of place we all value?

The coyotes howl. I shiver, for myself and for my state.

George Smith is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon and can be reached at george@samcef.org.

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Reader comments

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Jack Pine of Brunswick, ME
Dec 7, 2007 12:53 PM
I think the following letter speaks for more sportsmen.

http://tinyurl.com/2ls95k


report abuse
Cecil Gray of bingham, ME
Dec 5, 2007 8:05 PM
Hey George, wasn't it 1997 that Plum Creek flew you and your sister to Montana to be wooed as corporate lackeys. I recall that you both came back and lauded them as access oriented folks. HMMMM. I remember a forester from Idaho that I guided on a deer hunt in the mid nineties. He asked me who owned the land on which we were hunting. I told him that a comp. named Plum Creek was going to buy it from John Hancock. This man was a Reagonomics fellow, hardly left leaning, and he told me that this company lied to his face more than any other he had ever dealt with. George and edye are in good company.report abuse
catsome of portland, ME
Dec 5, 2007 7:04 PM
What really matters is so many people care enough TO "fight" for what we LOVE---MAINE.(and that their ARE sides)
John A. I don't believe there are any battles that can't be won. They may not be easy to win. When they violate our core, the people of Maine have a habit of saying---enough!!! Usually it ends up HAVING to be thru referenda. We have a habit of turning to them when our voice isn't heard by our elected leaders( but well financed lobbyists voices are.)
Democracy paves the way for creating conflict AND unity!!! report abuse
catsome of portland, ME
Dec 5, 2007 6:46 PM
Gee BEFORE reading the comments I was going to comment Is this the same once blantantly conservative George Smith-- turned all touchy feely and liberal like ??? I liked his school consolidation piece TOO!!

I thought maybe he got struck by lightning and had an epiphany or something.

Well written--- none the less.

Democracy at it's core means people disagree George, ESPECIALLY about the BIG issues facing this state. And there are many. And there are "two sides" to most of them. Our form of government was intended to BE conflict laden. And well it IS!! That should be no surprize.

Sort of seemed like a "Gee can't we all just get along" piece---Well---only if we all agree... and we seldom do... to every "side" there usually IS "another side".

It was very well written none the less, and it does speak well of key issues that divide us and of the state that most of us love. We all seem to be "fighting" for the same thing--Quality of Place. The place we call HOME. We just disagree on how we "get" there. And preserve what we LOVE report abuse

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