Maine Coast Protection Initiative Announces $137,950 in New Grants for Conservation

The Land Trust Alliance, Maine State Planning Office, Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Service Center are announcing $137,950 in grants to nine conservation projects in coastal Maine. The funding represents the first round of grants provided by the Maine Coast Protection Initiative (MCPI), a pioneering public-private partnership of over seventy coastal organizations and agencies working toward a long-range strategic plan to dramatically increase the pace and quality of land protection in coastal Maine.

The grants will focus on two of three main goals of MCPI, with funded projects as follows:

Goal: Protecting Priority Conservation Lands

• Supporting the effort to map for coastal towns all commercial and recreational access to the coast: Island Institute ($25,000)
• Mapping coast-wide the important diadramous fish habitat areas to develop priority habitat focus areas for conservation: Maine Audubon in collaboration with Maine’s Beginning with Habitat ($12,950)
• Creating a process for communities coast-wide to inventory & prioritize scenic and cultural resources: Maine State Planning Office ($23,000)
• Supporting the effort to create a comprehensive conserved lands GIS database encompassing all the conserved properties within the service areas of three South-Coast local land trusts (Great Works Regional Land Trust, Kittery Land Trust, and the York Land Trust): MCHT in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy ($7,000)
• Creating and providing digitized tax parcel maps of twenty-six towns to eight Mid-Coast land trusts for strategic conservation planning uses: Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association ($20,000)
• Supporting a model approach to community-based strategic conservation planning in coordination with the coastal towns of Warren, Thomaston, South Thomaston, Owls Head, St. George, and Cushing: Georges River Land Trust ($25,000)

Goal 3: Building support for Conservation

• Supporting the work of Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission and Mt. Agamenticus to the Sea Conservation Initiative in providing tools and technical assistance to help six towns in southern coastal Maine to achieve their conservation goals: York Land Trust ($5,000)
• Supporting Sagadahoc Region Rural Resource Initiative’s work with twelve towns and the local Mid-Coast land trusts to implement the strategic regional open space plan and accompanying tools to promote and increase land conservation in the region: Mid-Coast Council for Business Development & Planning ($15,000)
• Creating a communication campaign and toolkit for use by land trusts and their partners to advance support for conservation: MCHT ($5,000)