| Royal River Conservation Trust |
New Gloucester, Maine | Royal River Conservation Trust (RRCT) and Maine Farmland Trust (MFT) announce the establishment of a 150-acre conservation easement including conservation of one mile of Royal River shoreline, on a farm on Cobbs Bridge Road in New Gloucester, Maine. The farm will remain in private ownership, with a conservation easement held by RRCT. Both RRCT and MFT provided funds for the project, with support from many funders including the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, and the Ram Island Conservation Fund of the Maine Community Foundation.
The easement includes exceptional terms to keep the farm in agricultural use, and to protect high value ecological areas, rare shoreline species, and mature forests. Easement terms allow future public access on a trail to the Royal River.
With 75 acres of Maine’s best agricultural soils and 33 acres of open fields, the conservation easement includes an Option to Purchase at Agricultural Value which is designed to keep the rich, productive farmland accessible to working farmers in the future. If the property were under contract to be sold to a non-farmer buyer outside the seller’s family, MFT – in consultation with RRCT – holds the right to purchase the farm and resell it at agricultural value to a farmer.
On the property, RRCT will soon begin to build the planned 1.5-mile River Elf Trail – named in honor of the River Elves of Wabanaki lore. According to typical legend, river elves are infamous tricksters that like to cause mischief upon unsuspecting people. [Learn more about river elves legends and their place in Wabanaki culture under RRCT’s “River Elves – Wabanaki educational content” drop-down tab at this link.]
The trail will allow public hiking and bank fishing access to a point on the Royal River. This stretch of river currently has public access only at road bridges. No public access to the parcel is allowed until the trail and off-road parking is built, with construction beginning in 2024 with likely completion in 2025. Public access will be on-trail only.
The conservation easement and planned River Elf Trail fall within RRCT’s four-town ‘hotspot’ where Auburn, Durham, New Gloucester, and Pownal meet and represents another major conserved property in a critical upriver region. As development in the watershed continues, and as sea run fisheries may be restored by the removal of Yarmouth’s dams, RRCT is accelerating its efforts to conserve and connect resilient lands, protect ecological integrity, mitigate the effects of climate change, and provide accessible respite for the region’s growing population.
The new working farm conservation easement is located within one of the larger remaining undeveloped habitat areas in Greater Portland – those greater than 1,000 acres — and includes conservation of one mile of shoreline of the Royal River. In addition, just northwest of this conservation easement is a 239-acre farm conserved by MFT in 2023, and the new 67-acre Little Meadow Preserve conserved by RRCT in 2023.
“We are truly indebted to the generous vision of the landowners, who worked with us over several years. The establishment of this conservation easement protects valuable Maine farmland and mature forest and will provide fishing and bank access to the Royal through River Elf Trail,” said RRCT Executive Director Alan Stearns. “With the naming of the trail, we acknowledge the Wabanaki people who have lived on and stewarded all of the land within the Royal River watershed – and beyond – for thousands of years.”
“We were pleased to work with these conservation-minded landowners to preserve their property’s agricultural resources,” said MFT Farmland Protection Project Manager Amanda Wheeler. “The farm’s open fields – 33 acres in total – have been hayed by a local commercial farm for years and will now continue to be available for farming in perpetuity. The road-front fields in particular not only produce a valuable hay crop, but are flat, scenic, and otherwise imminently developable if not for these landowners’ decision to protect their property. MFT looks forward to supporting RRCT in ensuring that the property is always stewarded by landowners who are enthusiastic about the agricultural significance of this land.”
— Learn more about the project, plans, funders and more at RRCT’s Willow Farm and River Elf Trail page.
