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Truly a place out of time, the Northern Forest is a vast landscape where the sky is still dark at night, flocks of birds come to breed by the millions, and rural commmunities live in close communion with each other and the natural world. It is a region where people gain a sense of themselves and often their livelihoods from the land.
The Northern Forest has traditionally been held in private hands, with the majority of lands owned by large industrial timber companies as source lands for their locally-sited mills. Rising real estate values combined with eroding profits from traditional timber operations have led many of these companies to sell their lands in large parcels sometimes totaling more than a million acres. The result has been increasing subdivision and parcelization of this great forest. In response, conservation organizations led by the 50-member Northern Forest Alliance have worked with federal, state, and local officials to conserve more than 3 million acres of land. Special places conserved using Forest Legacy and other federal funding include Gulf Hagas in Maine, Lake Umbagog in New Hampshire, Vermont's Nulhegan and Victory Basins, and New York's High Peaks Wilderness. For more information, please visit the Northern Forest Alliance.
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