A 21-member task force assembled by Gov. John Baldacci, whose commission is to oversee and make recommendations on how best to manage Maine’s public lands, held its first meeting on Wednesday.

According the Boston Globe, the Maine Department of Conservation Commissioner, Patrick McGowan, spent time highlighting all the lands available for outdoor recreation. He expressed concern that too few people in Maine are aware of how much land the state owns for public access. He quoted 950,000-plus acres. He also said more people need to see his presentation.

“I think this presentation needs to be seen by a lot of people in the state of Maine so they can see what they own,” he said. “This is publicly owned land.”

Is it? I’ll have to double check the figures but I believe the people of Maine own somewhere around half that amount. The rest is held through wildlife easements, etc.

There are some real areas of public lands that have been bones of contention among different Maine outdoor groups and justifiably so. When the scam that cost the Maine people over 7,000 acres of public lands in order to buy the Katahdin Lake parcel that remains open only to exclusive users, it angered a lot of people. We still have no land to compensate for that loss.

Management of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway has always been a thorn in the side of so many and nothing at least in the near future indicates that it will change.

And most recently when the Appalachian Mountain Club bought up the 37,000 acres of the former Katahdin Iron Works using public money and then closed 10,000 of it to snowmobiling after it promised it wouldn’t do that. Now the AMC is asking that more land be closed to bear hunting. Public money should never be used to buy land and then exclude certain users.

It will be an interesting chemistry to observe as 21 people, representing a wide array of areas, all vie for their interests in public lands. As much as I would like to see something constructive come from this, I’m not holding my breath. There are just too many special interest groups in Maine and too many of those care only about themselves and are not interested in sharing space. Watch out!

Tom Remington