LandCan offers lots of help to landowners

 

Maine landowners should connect to the Land Conservation Assistance Network (LandCAN), a nonprofit based in Falmouth, Maine.

LandCAN is an online land conservation network that helps landowners maintain and preserve their land for future generations. They provide landowners with a directory of conservation information, service providers, tools, and programs to help them manage their lands for both environmental and economic sustainability.

They want to keep working lands working, while conserving and restoring land and wildlife habitats. And yes, that is a very ambitious agenda. But if anyone can achieve that it would be Amos Eno, the organization’s founder and director. I’ve known Amos for many years, and he has had an outstanding career both at the national level and in Maine.

I recently met with Amos and one of his new staff members, Brie Costello, to learn more about their work for a series of columns I hope to write about their organization.

Amos left me with lots of great information including this explanation of their mission.

It’s more important than ever to support landowners and help them sustainably manage their own properties, noted one handout. Private lands host the vast majority of both wetlands (82%) and endangered species habitats (80%). They contain high levels of biodiversity and habitats for rare species, much more so than public lands. 71% of the land in the lower 48 states is privately owned. And in Maine, that percentage is even higher, 90%.

Amos is very proud to note that LandCAN is the only one stop shop for working landowners. LandCAN.org is the only location where you can get conservation, state and federal grant, estate planning, and wildlife protection information all in one place.

And here’s some really good news. All of this information is free. Amos does a lot of fundraising in order to keep that information free to landowners. The organization gets significant funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and maintains a website for endangered species conservation, www.habitatcan.org.

Board members come from all over the country, and Amos is working to establish LandCANs in other states focusing on Texas and Colorado right now.

So, if you are Maine landowner, please check out LandCAN’s website and information. I will be writing more about their great work in the future.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.