For immediate release: October 31, 2021
Hancock, ME – The recently established Frenchman Bay Community Forest in Hancock is now conserved as wilderness. The 1,435-acre public forest was purchased by Frenchman Bay Conservancy this past March. This week, the Conservancy granted a forever-wild easement on the land to Northeast Wilderness Trust, a regional land trust focused on wildlands. This permanent legal protection ensures the forest will grow old and wild.
The two land trusts have been working together through the Wildlands Partnership program, an initiative of Northeast Wilderness Trust which seeks to engage local land trusts across New England and New York in forever-wild conservation.
“Wild landscapes, especially at low elevations, are missing from our region,” said Aaron Dority, Executive Director of Frenchman Bay Conservancy. “Creating the conditions for old-growth forest to return to Downeast Maine, in a place where the community can have a firsthand relationship to the land, has been a special opportunity.”