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John Ewing/Staff Photographer
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John Ewing/Staff PhotographerLike many others who want the same thing, she found it in the woods of southern Maine.
Bernier and her husband moved in June from New Brunswick to a new subdivision in Acton. The small town has no taffic lights or business district, but it does have one of the fastest-growing populations in Maine. For Bernier and her new neighbors, the secluded York County community is life the way it should be.
New homes and neighborhoods are sprouting up in the timberlands of southern and western Maine, luring families from outside the state and from Maine`s higher-priced cities and suburbs.
But the scattered development and fragmentation of the forest are claiming thousands of acres of timberlands each year between Kittery and Rumford, raising concern that the rural economy and way of life is eroding one woodlot at a time.
``It`s eating up land, and I think it`s eating it up a lot faster than it needs to,`` said Rene Noel, a forester who manages woodlands throughout southern Maine.
The words ``Maine woods`` typically conjure images of the remote northern timberlands, logging roads and paper mills. And public attention has been focused lately on development pressure in the 10.5 million acres of timberlands in northern Maine`s unorganized territories. That`s largely due to Plum Creek Timber Co.`s proposal for 975 house lots and two resorts in the Moosehead Lake region, a kind of watershed in the history of the North Woods.
Maine`s 10 southern and western counties, on the other hand, contain 4.5 million acres of commercial timberlands that are important to the economy, lifestyle and character of the region. And here, the surburbanization is well under way, according to state data and interviews with planners, foresters and landowners.
More than 20,000 acres, or 31 square miles of the region`s timberlands -- an area the size of Saco -- were converted to other uses, primarily new homes, during the seven years before January 2006, according to Maine Forest Service statistics. The pace of land conversion was twice as fast as the pace a decade before. The change in southern Maine is a constant slow drip taking place in dozens of communities. It attracts little notice, even though it is happening in the backyard of the state`s largest population centers.
``It`s the forest we live in every day, but it`s kind of invisible,`` said Lloyd Irland, a forestry consultant and head of the Winthrop-based Irland Group. ``We`re losing a lot of what makes Maine the way it is.``
Southern Maine forests are relatively young. In fact, there are far more trees here than there were a century ago.
Unlike northern Maine, which remained working forests in the hands of a small number of industrial owners, southern Maine was divided among many owners, largely cut over and farmed through the 1800s.
Forests grew back in the past century, and owners who inherited or bought the land now typically manage it as woodlots, cutting and selling trees for lumber, pulp or firewood.
Southern Maine is especially prime territory for growing white pine, and its forests are critical to the supply of pine for the region`s lumberyards, as well as producing red oak and other species.
The forests are now the defining feature of the region. They provide recreational opportunities and habitat for wildlife.
The same sandy, well-drained ground that grows tall pines, it turns out, is ideal for septic systems and house foundations.
A combination of factors -- population growth, high prices for homes in cities and suburbs, and a strong market for vacation homes -- has fueled demand for lots in places such as Acton, Limerick and Waterboro, the three fastest-growing towns in York County.
York County is ground zero, the fastest-growing county in...
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