• Vision and Strategy
• Desired Outcomes
  
• Feature Project: Kennebec River Initiative
  

Desired Outcomes

• Healthy ecosystems with landscape retaining traditional character (forests as forests, farmland conserved)
  
• Access to natural resources for multiple sustainable uses by individuals, businesses, organizations (especially uses that generate economic benefit for Maine Woods communities)
  
• Well developed green infrastructure to support multiple use of landscape resources
  
• Strong communications and working relationships across sector lines (timber, tourism)
• Increased cultural capital through transmission of knowledge, values, and skills related to the landscape

The Kennebec River Initiative (KRI) is deep into the second phase of this very important project aimed at securing the Kennebec as one of the state’s most important ecological, recreational, cultural and economic assets. More than 350 people have participated in the KRI since the project’s beginning in 2006. A 140 page Action Plan was created during Phase I of the project that details specific, on the ground projects throughout the entire Kennebec Corridor from Moosehead Lake to the sea.

While the Kennebec River is very much an interconnected resource, KRI organized it regionally to gather information from stakeholders who live, work and play in various sections of the Corridor. Phase II continues to move forward toward implementing projects proposed in the Action Plan. A series of Reach Committee meetings, Tidal, Middle and Northern have taken place this winter to assist in prioritizing which projects should move forward immediately and have the most momentum.

While there is some overlap among the needs in each reach, several regional themes emerged from the reach meetings that stakeholders want to focus local efforts on. In the Northern Reach for example, public access to the river including, trails, boat access, both ramps and carry in sites, was stressed as both a desire and a need in an area where river recreation is a large part of the economy. Also of great interest to stakeholders in the north is working to protect large sections of forestland along the Kennebec from development. Several areas were identified at the Northern meeting where fish spawning habitats have been compromised by several factors including overfishing, sedimentation, and other non-point source pollution issues.

In the Middle Reach, farmland protection will be a major focus. Thousands of acres of farmland are found directly along the Kennebec River in the middle section. KRI will be partnering with the Maine Department of Agriculture and the Maine Farmland Trust who will work with interested farmers to keep working farms in business and look at long range planning to protect these large tracts from development and maintain open space along the Kennebec Corridor. Addressing various habitat concerns as well as fixing several non-point source pollutions issues will be some of the work in this section of the river.

In the Tidal region of the Kennebec, work will focus on marketing the activities that exist in the lower Kennebec and expanding the rail-trail system between Gardiner and Brunswick.

The entire 140 page Kennebec River Corridor Action Plan can be seen at the KRI web-page at, www.kcswcd.org. Detailed minutes of each meeting, summary and theme information as well as upcoming events and status reports are there as well.