Maine's 'protected' forest: Decades of legislation yield meager results

摘要

The big fear in Maine, over the last few decades, has been that landowners would cut the value of the woods, subdivide the land, and then sell it for real estate development. Over these decades, the state has crafted many responses to this fear. Sincethe forest is now protected on so many levels, forestry has become less of a public issue. The first "solution" was the Tree Growth Tax Law (TGTL). Passed in the early 1970s, the TGTL was supposed to encourage sustainable forestry by keeping forestry taxes low. The theory was that high taxes would cause landowners to liquidate. The TGTL also creates tax penalties for conversion from forestry uses.