By Philip Mathieu, Intern & Volunteer Co-Lead
The 30x30 team has been very busy this spring working to further our goal of conserving 30% of Maine's lands and waters by 2030.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to present Sierra Club Maine's testimony in support of LD 993: An Act to Facilitate Stakeholder Input Regarding Forest Policy in Maine. This was my first time actually inside the Capitol building in Augusta. (I was born in Maine but grew up mostly in New Hampshire, and my involvement with Sierra Club started during the pandemic when nobody was allowed in the building.)
Supporting the Forest Advisory Board is a perfect example of Sierra Club's grassroots ethos in action. As you may know, Maine is roughly 90% forested, and approximately 90% of that forest is controlled by private landowners. This means that achieving our conservation and climate goals depends not only on voluntary conservation but also on building relationships and working creatively with the forest products industry to find ways to better manage the health of our forests and of our rural communities.
In addition to pursuing this legislation, the 30x30 team has been actively working on building the very relationships that this forest advisory board could help to foster. Over the past few months, we have met with a number of industry experts in the forest world, ranging from private landowners to retired foresters to researchers. From my perspective, these conversations have .revealed a few key themes:
- Maine’s forests are (in my opinion) our most valuable environmental asset, at least from a terrestrial standpoint.
- Our strategy toward many of our critical environmental goals (carbon neutrality, protecting biodiversity, habitat connectivity) is largely dependent on our ability to preserve our forests.
- A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that our forests are, at best, not as healthy as they could be or, at worst, in decline compared to other parts of the Northeast.
Charting a course forward for our forests and for our state will require continued dialog between the scientific community, conservation groups, and the forestry industry.
Speaking of the scientific community, when not volunteering for the Sierra Club I am a full-time graduate student at the Roux Institute of Northeastern University where I am completing a master's degree in data science. I am working on a study that attempts to quantify access to conservation land across Maine. I'm not ready to share my full analysis publicly, but the preliminary results show that more than half of Mainers do not have conservation land within a 10-minute walk of their homes, a target adopted by the Trust for Public Land, among others, to encourage community conservation.
My research has served as a powerful reminder that conservation is about more than just the trees. In particular, it has been exciting to watch our Grassroots Organizer Nyalat Biliew build connections with groups representing historically disadvantaged communities in the hopes of better understanding how we can center their voices as we pursue common goals.
This blog post is really just a quick taste of what's been going on within our team. I invite you to join us for our monthly 30x30 Zoom calls for a more in-depth briefing. [add link to sign up] Please always feel free to reach out to me or my co-lead Minot Weld if you have questions or ideas.