Maine can claim 41,000 acres more of wilderness this year, around the Debsconeag Lakes Region that lies just south and west of Maine's Baxter State Park. Also protected from development, subdivision and poor forest practices are an adjacent 200,000 acres. Public access to this lovely region is now guaranteed. The project-known as the Katahdin Forest Project-brought together an impressive alliance that included The Wilderness Society, the Nature Conservancy, the Northern Forest Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Trust for Public Land, the Maine Appalachian Trail Conference and the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

The Debsconeag Lakes area is extraordinarily beautiful. Towering pines and moss-draped boulders encircle large, wild lakes. Mt. Katahdin looms above. Success here offers a model of partnerships and collaboration that will help us as we try to protect more of the Northern Forest that stretches from western New York northward into Maine.