Your Dec. 26 story, “Her dream park, locals’ nightmare,” (News) focused on the worries of mill town residents that a proposed Maine Woods National Park would supplant their way of life.
I am sympathetic to those concerns, but believe their anger is directed at the wrong target. The park idea did not cause changes that are rocking northern Maine: mill closings, layoffs, sales of millions of acres of forestland, escalating real estate prices, development pressures and a crippling brain drain.
Indeed, a national park may be the best hope for helping the economy of the region–not to mention tremendous environmental and recreational benefits.
People are hungry for something hopeful, and such a park could be our generation’s gift to the next.
It would be sad if we let this opportunity slip past us while the land becomes more fragmented and expensive, the forest industry continues to crumble, and the way of life cherished by both residents and visitors becomes only a memory. Doing nothing would be a tragedy.
