As SRRRI, representatives of twelve municipalities and local, regional and statewide resource protection and land conservation organizations are working together to devise a land conservation strategy and to develop tools to identify and protect rural and natural resources of regional significance.
      The municipalities include Arrowsic, Bath , Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Brunswick , Georgetown , Harpswell, Phippsburg, Richmond , Topsham, West Bath , and Woolwich. Our towns comprise the rural area that complements the Brunswick/Topsham/ Bath service center, made up of coastal peninsulas, embayments, wetlands and tidal creeks, the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers and Merrymeeting Bay , and farmland and woodlots in large blocks.

      The functions and values of these resources are threatened by development. However they are important to us, whether we live or work in a rural part of the region or we go there to pick strawberries or apples; or to cross country ski, hunt, canoe or go to the beach, or because we want to buy clams harvested from local flats or grow vegetables to sell at the Farmer's Market in town, or because we appreciate having nearby large tracts of land where diverse wildlife species thrive.

      Highlights of what SRRRI will have accomplished by the end of 2006 include:

• A GIS-based Beginning with Habitat process to identify regionally significant focus areas
• An April 2005 regional Visioning Session attended by 100 people to identify their “special places” in the region and threats to them
• Interviews of residents about rural character by Bowdoin students
• Maps that combine regionally significant focus areas with special places identified by people, protected lands, farmland and trails
• Shoreland zoning analysis, recommendations and related training
• A model inter-municipal agreement for sharing growth and rural areas
• An inventory of farmland and interviews with farmers towards enhanced farmland preservation
• Training sessions on conservation tools for municipal officials, and the farmland, open space and tree growth tax programs
• Steering Committee trained in collaborative decision making
• Coordination with region's land trusts to optimize opportunities for collaboration
• A strategic regional open space plan

     If you are interested in finding out more about this project, please contact Katrina Van Dusen, regional planner at Midcoast Business Development and Planning, 865-6599, katrina@ suscom-maine.net .