Quimby, along with a series of non-profit partners, spent more than two decades pushing for a new national park in ME before this week’s success.
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For the 32 national parks that began as national monuments, an average of 32 years elapsed between that designation and the establishment of a national park.
“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.
The president has the ability to designate national monuments without Congress’s consent under the Antiquities Act, signed into law in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt.
Having bought out her cofounder Burt Shavitz years ago and eventually selling Burt’s Bees to the Clorox Company, Quimby has been using her fortune for preservation.
“It means there’s a slice of the northern forest that could remain intact for perpetuity”, he added. Quimby announced for the first time publicly in 2011 some of the details of her dream – that she meant to donate approximately 70,000 family-owned acres east of Baxter as a national park.
But residents in towns near the proposed parkland voted against its creation.
In the meantime, what do we say today about the decision by the president to accept Quimby’s gift of land and money to benefit this and future generations?
And, practically speaking, that endowment means that National Park Service employees are already on the job.
The area comes as a gift from the family foundation of Roxanne Quimby, a philanthropist and the co-founder of Burt’s Bees. “Most of those jobs, more than 250,000 of those jobs, were local jobs”.
The formal announcement Wednesday came a day after reports that conservationist Roxanne Quimby’s foundation had transferred the land to federal ownership. Other activities such as hunting and snowmobiling will also be allowed on a portion of the monument.
However no logging, except for tree removal the Park Service conducts for conservation or safety purposes, will be permitted.
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. Susan Collins and Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin last fall wrote a letter to Obama outlining “serious reservations” about the proposal.
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. At this point only a few thousand people visit the site, but that number is likely to increase now that it’s received presidential recognition.
The new monument encompasses some 87,500 acres of “awe-inspiring mountains, forests and waters”, as the White House puts it.
He repeatedly noted that other national parks had similar beginnings. A study performed by the national advocacy group Small Business Majority indicated that 10 monuments created by the Obama administration have had an economic impact of $156 million since he began designating them in 2011. The Bangor Daily News backed it, saying the “region needs new life”. Her wealth would be used for the greater good by her seeking to preserve as much of the approximately 10 million acres of North Maine woods – the largest tract of undivided woodlands east of the Mississippi River – as she could.
Her son, Lucas St. Clair, took over the campaign, allowing hunters and snowmobilers to return to part of the area. Quimby initially sought the designation of the land as a national park. The Centennial inspires reflection on the history of America’s iconic landscapes and historical and cultural sites, as well as an opportunity to look forward toward the next century of conservation and historic preservation.
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“I think this is the people of Maine sharing the North Woods with the rest of the world”, said NPS Public Affairs Officer Jeffrey Olson.
