About Our Work

Maine becomes The Nature Conservancy’s fourth chapter, with Rachel Carson as Honorary Chairman.

1,579 acres of Great Wass Island purchased, the first of 16 islands in the archipelago that will eventually receive protection from TNC.

Maine passes landmark $35 million Land for Maine’s Future Bond. TNC negotiates the Land for Maine’s Future Board’s first purchase the following year, 1,041 acres at Kennebunk Plains.

TNC in Maine purchases 185,000 acres of remote forest along 40 miles of the upper St. John River for $35 million, the largest single financial commitment TNC has made anywhere in the world.

An unorthodox conservation approach results in a 195,000-acre working forest easement and acquisition of the 46,000-acre Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area, as TNC works with Great Northern Paper in a deal to save trees and jobs.

To build resiliency back into the Gulf of Maine, TNC in Maine launches an innovative permit banking initiative—a strategy that leverages acquired fishing permits to promote sustainable fishing practices.

Along with many partners in the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, TNC celebrates the purchase of three dams on the river. Two will be removed and a third bypassed with improvements on several other dams beginning in 2012.

TNC enrolls 124,000 acres in the St. John River Forest in a forest carbon project—increasing carbon stocking, accelerating forest restoration and expanding ecological reserve land.

TNC purchases an important link in a large swath of contiguous forest and creates the 9,608-acre Boundary Mountains Preserve along the border with Canada—part of a strategy to address climate change through conservation.