Quimby typically denies forestry, hunting, snowmobiling, ATV riding and similar activities on her lands but does allow hiking and other passive recreation activities.
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Burt’s Bees made Quimby wealthy, and she used her fortune to buy large quantities of former timber land in northern Maine.
The area in green is now protected as Katahdin Woods. The opposition, which also included the governor and Maine’s congressional delegation, was so strong that Obama resorted to using his power under the 1906 Antiquities Act to immediately name the land a national monument rather than a national park, which would require Congressional approval.
Obama’s executive order creating the monument is expected to bring many new jobs to the Katahdin region, an area decimated by the collapse of the paper industry.
Senator King is still waiting to decide whether or not he thinks the national monument should someday become a national park.
A spokesman for King, an independent, said the senator won’t “respond to name-calling” but will respond to a designation, if and when Obama makes one.
He says it’s not just about federal protection for the region and that it can work as a huge boost for the local economy.
“It’s sad that rich, out-of-state liberals can team up with President Obama to force a national monument on rural Mainers who do not want it”, Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, said in a statement.
Quimby’s son, Lucas St. Clair, who has advocated for the monument’s creation in recent years, brushed aside such criticism Wednesday.
The monument management planning process is beginning more or less immediately, Farmer said. “We’re going to get through this next election and see what happens”.
It will be the only national monument that allows hunting, though not of bears, which was a provision in the foundation’s deed to the government. Many national parks like Maine’s Acadia National Park and the Grand Canyon National Park started with monument status. St. Clair placed the family’s total investment at about $100 million. Quimby valued the land at $60 million and provided an additional $20 million for an endowment.
Republicans have tried numerous measures to significantly scale back Obama’s authority to create national monuments, along with legislation to specifically stop the ME monument and other proposed protections.
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“The National Park Service marks its centennial this week with a renewed commitment to tell a more complete story of our nation and to connect with the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates”, said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “It’s also an ego play for Roxanne Quimby and Sen”. The land has been donated to the Federal Government by philanthropist Roxanne Quimby’s foundation, Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., facilitated by the National Park Foundation as part of its Centennial Campaign for America’s National Parks.
