Frenchman Bay Conservancy closed on the 405-acre Whitney Community Forest adjacent to the Ellsworth High School. The property is the largest remaining tract of undeveloped woodlands within walking distance from downtown Ellsworth, and already features an informal trail system used by the local community. In addition to the Whitney Community Forest, FBC also closed on… Read more

Frenchman Bay Conservancy was chosen as a recipient of the nationally competitive Athletic Brewing Company’s Two For The Trails grant program. The $25,000 grant award will go towards the construction of an ADA-accessible trail at the future Jordan River Preserve, which FBC conserved in September 2023. TRENTON, ME— In September 2023, Frenchman Bay Conservancy (FBC)… Read more

Frenchman Bay Conservancy closed on the former Bar Harbor Golf Course at the end of September, conserving 186 acres of coastal wetlands and adjacent uplands that will become the future Jordan River Preserve.  By conserving the property FBC is protecting over 1 mile of vulnerable coastline from development, building climate resilience and critical wetland habitat… Read more

Frenchman Bay Conservancy is announcing a $10 million comprehensive capital campaign to protect land, sea, and livelihoods in Downeast Maine. The campaign will raise the funds to protect 10,000 new acres of valuable land, enhance stewardship of our preserves to maximize benefits to nature and people, and expand outdoor education in our local public schools… Read more

Conservation can often be a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, it encourages the smart and healthy utilization of natural resources. (This differentiates it from preservation, which sees the total or near-total exclusion of human influence.) On the other hand, conservation requires management and oversight – stewardship – to ensure that this balance between… Read more

Maine is a state with a lot of land.  …Wait, hold on, don’t leave yet! I’m going somewhere with this, I swear. Though rather small when compared to the western states, it makes up close to half of New England’s land area. It’s larger than the country of Scotland, and is home to a single… Read more

When FBC’s 2023 Outreach & Education Intern, Michael, started his summer with us, he was expecting to see many visitors while working the Exploration Center at Tidal Falls Preserve. Perhaps even a few regulars that stopped by the preserve to watch the reversing falls. What he quickly realized is that one of his most frequent… Read more

I will be the first to admit that, in general, my writing tends to gravitate towards gravitas. Verdant coastal isles, summer colonies and railroads, isolated wildernesses–these are settings straight out of a dime novel. But for all my prattling, I have yet to dive into our state’s most bountiful and significant natural resource: our forests…. Read more

Maine is quite the endless enigma.  It has the low population density and large uninhabited areas typical of a western state like Montana and Wyoming. The conifer-hardwood forests, rocky uplands and hemiboreal wildlife are nearly identical to those of the Upper Midwest. Low per capita incomes and a very rural population (the most rural in… Read more