Maine Chapter Website

Looking to reduce your carbon footprint? AMC’s “Greener Homes, Cleaner Mountains” campaign may have some advice for you. Pledge to take three actions and prizes including AMC books and stays at AMC destinations could be yours. Sign up to pledge by September 30, 2011, and check out this poster!

Would you like to go to the widely acclaimed Common Ground Country Fair in Unity September 23-25? All you have to do is volunteer to staff the AMC booth for a 3-hour shift on any day. It’s a great way to talk with many AMC members, as well as encourage folks to become members. Or, if you are going to the fair anyway, come visit our booth! The fair has been dubbed “Maine’s most authentic country fair.” Events, vendors, and exhibitors promote conservation and sustainable living while enjoying local, delicious organic food. Contact Matt Colello for more information.

Interested in rare and fragile flowers? Or how about air quality and visual impacts on our summit views? AMC’s “Mountain Watch Program” may be for you! This program turns the ordinary hiker, into a volunteer scientist to collect important data on trends in alpine flowering dates and visibility distances. All in an effort to protect the ecological health of the mountains we all enjoy. There is also a Nature Notes blog to keep up to date on what is in bloom!

Is it possible to develop land-based wind power as a renewable energy source for Maine while protecting the state’s ecological health, natural heritage, and scenic beauty? Where does AMC stand on wind power and how does it make decisions? Is the tradeoff between energy independence and natural vistas a real one? What are the facts about the possibilities and pitfalls of land-based wind power?

Join us on Thursday March 31 to hear a panel of speakers representing environmental groups and the wind industry discussing land-based wind power in Maine and its potential contribution to energy production; its ecological, scenic, and recreational effects; and its relative costs and incentives. The panel is David Publicover, AMC’s Senior Staff Scientist and wind power expert; Ted Koffman, Maine Audubon’s new Executive Director; a representative from First Wind, a developer of Maine wind farms; and moderator Maine State Representative Bob Duchesne, Chair of the legislature’s Natural Resources Committee.

The forum will be structured to be informative, balanced, and fair, and to help members identify the important issues, their relationships, and their tradeoffs. It is co-sponsored by AMC Maine Chapter and Maine Audubon and will be held on Thursday, March 31, 2011 from 7-8:30 pm at Maine Audubon’s Fields Pond Center, 216 Fields Pond Rd, Holden, ME 04429, about 15 minutes south of Bangor. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information download a Flyer_LandBasedWindPower or contact John Mullens

Is it possible to develop land-based wind power as a renewable energy source for Maine while protecting the state’s ecological health, natural heritage, and scenic beauty? Where does AMC stand on wind power and how does it make decisions? Is the tradeoff between energy independence and natural vistas a real one? What are the facts about the possibilities and pitfalls of land-based wind power?

Join us on Thursday March 31 to hear a panel of speakers representing environmental groups and the wind industry discussing land-based wind power in Maine and its potential contribution to energy production; its ecological, scenic, and recreational effects; and its relative costs and incentives. The panel is David Publicover, AMC’s Senior Staff Scientist and wind power expert; Ted Koffman, Maine Audubon’s new Executive Director; a representative from First Wind, a developer of Maine wind farms; and moderator Maine State Representative Bob Duchesne, Chair of the legislature’s Natural Resources Committee.

The forum will be structured to be informative, balanced, and fair, and to help members identify the important issues, their relationships, and their tradeoffs. It is co-sponsored by AMC Maine Chapter and Maine Audubon and will be held on Thursday, March 31, 2011 from 7-8:30 pm at Maine Audubon’s Fields Pond Center, 216 Fields Pond Rd, Holden, ME 04429, about 15 minutes south of Bangor. The talk is free and open to the public. or more information download a flyer (76KB PDF) or contact John Mullens

Registration is now open for the 2011 AMC Annual Meeting! The meeting will be held on Saturday, January 29, 2011, at the Sheraton Ferncroft Resort in Danvers, Massachusetts. There will be workshops and committee meetings as well as volunteer award recipient presentations during the day, and then a dinner, business meeting, and presentation in the evening. This year’s Keynote Speaker is Dr. Char Miller, an award winning author and U.S. Forest Service history expert. He is the author of the award-winning Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism and Ground Work: Conservation in American Culture. Registration information is available at this website. If you have any questions regarding the 2010 134th Annual Meeting, please call Cindy Martell, Event & Office Coordinator, at 617-391-6603, or e-mail her at cmar...@outdoors.org.

In April 2010, President Barack Obama kicked off the America’s Great Outdoors (AGO) Initiative. This encourages people to unplug from the e-world and reconnect with the natural one. You can submit your ideas to conserve natural places, share your stories about the places you love, and find ways to enjoy the outdoors. There will be a public listening session on Thursday September 2 in Bangor where your voice is needed! FMI.

The Baxter State Park Management Plan is up for revisions, and the public’s input is being sought. You can comment on things that you like and dislike, things that need improvement, future direction of the park, or any constructive comments in general about the 200,000 acre Baxter State Park. A listening session is scheduled for Tuesday July 27 from 5:30 – 7PM at the Bangor Public Library. Let your voice be heard!

Dean Bennett, UMaine professor, life-long conservationist and author, will take us on a century’s tour of the Wild River Valley, along the Maine/New Hampshire border. This magical and magnificent valley was heavily logged in the 1890′s and suffered all manner of environmental calamity, as did the people who once inhabited the area. Professor Bennett’s presentation takes us from wilderness to destruction and back to wilderness again. This is a story full of woe, heedless exploitation, desolation, followed by gradual, miraculous healing and inspiration. If you want to be inspired by the resilience of our natural world and witness the enlightened humanity that helps to make such restoration possible, than please join us for this special event.

Sponsored by the AMC Maine chapter conservation committee. The event will be Wednesday March 31, 2010, at the Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant St., Brunswick beginning at 7PM. Please contact Bob Goldman(207-831-5929) for more information.

Please join us on Wednesday March 24 for a presentation by Bryan Wentzell, AMC’s Maine Policy Manager, to talk about AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative and plans for 66,000 acres of conservation lands in the heart of the 100-Mile Wilderness region. AMC has permanently protected a 63-mile-long corridor of conservation land—the organization’s largest investment in its 134-year history. Bryan Wentzell will talk about balancing new backcountry recreation, timber harvesting, wilderness lodges, and traditional recreation activities, and will also touch upon the Plum Creek Timber Company’s concept plan and what it means for development and conservation in the Moosehead region. The program is free and open to the public. It will be at the Bangor Public Library, Maine. Come early for the potluck dinner at 5:30 pm followed by the presentation at 6:30 pm. Bring a potluck item to share and your own dinnerware (plate, utensils etc.). Drinks will be provided and plastic-ware will be available. Please contact John Mullens (207-361-1210) for more information, visit our calendar page, or download a flyer