Interpretive Signs Installed at Holt Research Forest
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Interpretive Signs Installed at Holt Research Forest

Arrowsic, Maine – July 2020 – In a partnership with The Nature Conservancy, the Maine Timber Research and Environmental Education Foundation (Maine TREE) recently installed a series of interpretive signs at its Holt Research Forest on the coastal island of Arrowsic. The signage program is the continuation of an effort to integrate the educational programming of Maine TREE into the Holt Research Forest,…

Jonathan LaBonte is Maine TREE’s new Executive Director

Jonathan LaBonte is Maine TREE’s new Executive Director

The Maine TREE Foundation (Maine TREE) is pleased to announce that Jonathan LaBonte of Auburn has been hired to join the staff as the new Executive Director effective July 1st.   LaBonte joins Maine TREE after extensive community and natural resource-based work with State Government, the Androscoggin Land Trust, and others, including three terms as Mayor…

Maine TREE’s 30th Anniversary Celebration!

Maine TREE’s 30th Anniversary Celebration!

Maine TREE Foundation marked its 30th Anniversary with a wonderful celebration on September 21, 2019!  Outdoor educational leaders at Old Town Elementary School (participants in Project Learning Tree and Forest Teachers’ Tours) kicked off the event with tours of their outdoor forest classroom, gardens, educational playground and so much more.    The party then moved…

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Threats, Challenges Facing Maine’s Forests

Forests have always faced threats. From natural disturbances like hurricanes and wildfires to native pests and diseases like spruce budworm to shifts in climate over the millennia. Humanity has been a threat: think about how quickly forests in a large part of Maine were cleared in the 1700s and 1800s to make room for agriculture,…

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Pinning down Maine’s future forest

By Joe RankinForests for Maine’s Future writer Forests aren’t static. They’re dynamic. Since trees colonized the rubble left by the glaciers’ retreat 12,000 years ago, the forest has shifted and reshaped itself many times. Jim Shaffer examines a pineNow the planet is heating up and scientists are trying to anticipate how things will change. Some…

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White Pines Hit by Needle Disease Year After Year

By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future Writer  Something’s not right. That’s what my MacBook tells me when I’ve got a wonky internet connection. It’s also the phrase that pops unbidden into my head in early to mid-June when I look out the window and see yellowing needles on the white pines that fringe my…

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Planting yourself in the forest “Green” burials are a growing thing

Have you ever noticed how many cemeteries have the word forest in their name? Forest Lawn is perhaps the best known. But usually, there’s no forest. A few trees, maybe, but mostly headstones lined up in ranks like soldiers. It’s kind of like a subdivision where they name the streets after tree species that have…

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Old-Growth Forests: Back to the Future?

There’s no question that old growth forests are fairly uncommon, especially in the eastern parts of North America. In a handful of generations European settlers turned tens of millions of acres of old trees into beams and boards and a thousand other things and the land that had grown them to corn and potatoes and…