Our Focus Areas
What is a Focus Area?
When we talk about a “Conservation Focus Area,” we’re really talking about the special places that hold our community together—the forests, rivers, farms, and shorelines that shape our lives and sustain us. These are landscapes we’ve chosen with care, because they carry deep ecological importance, cultural meaning, and community value. They are home to rare plants and wildlife, provide clean water and fertile soils, and sustain traditional livelihoods like farming, fishing, and clamming.
By focusing our efforts on these areas, the Land Trust can care not just for individual properties, but for entire connected landscapes that nurture people and nature. Conserving these places today helps us meet urgent challenges like climate change and community resilience. Healthy forests and wetlands act as natural buffers against flooding, tidal marshes capture carbon and give wildlife safe passage, and working farms keep local food on our tables. Just as importantly, these lands offer us places to walk, paddle, learn, and connect—reminding us of our shared responsibility to steward them well.
Protecting focus areas means protecting the beauty, character, and abundance that makes this region home. It’s an investment in clean water, thriving ecosystems, and vibrant communities—now and for generations to come. Our Strategic Conservation Plan includes 34 focus areas across our service area. We invite you to explore some of these focus areas below and discover what makes them so special to our shared future.
We invite you to explore each focus area below and discover what makes them so special to our shared future.
Androscoggin River
The Androscoggin River, flowing between Brunswick and Topsham, is a living story of resilience and renewal. Home to the Arasagunticook who farmed, hunted, and fished along the river for thousands of years before the fertile floodplains and abundant fisheries brought early colonial settlers to its shores, the creation of dams and pulp and paper mills along the river all but destroyed the abundant native fisheries throughout the the 19th and 20th centuries. Once one of the most polluted rivers in the country, it became a powerful symbol for change, inspiring the Clean Water Act of 1972. Today, thanks to decades of effort, the river is once again a place of beauty, abundance, and connection.
Spanning 178 miles, the river’s final 15 mile journey to Merrymeeting Bay passes through Topsham and Brunswick, providing quiet backwaters, chains of islands, and undeveloped shorelines that are home to bald eagles, herons, sturgeon, and countless other species. Families fish from its banks, paddlers explore its hidden channels, and walkers and hunters find peace in its surrounding lands. Protecting the Androscoggin means protecting rare tidal marshes and silver maple floodplain forests, and the way of life and sense of belonging the river sustains.
This landscape is part of the Kennebec Estuary, one of Maine’s most ecologically significant regions, and every acre conserved helps ensure clean water, thriving fisheries, and access to nature for generations. From farms and forests to trails and islands, the Androscoggin continues to shape who we are as a community—reminding us that healing and renewal are possible when we care for the places we share.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include 250th Park, Androscoggin Woods, Coombs, Cow Island, Simpson Farm, and the Smart Property.
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Brunswick–Freeport Corridor
Stretching across fertile fields, cold streams, and historic farms, the Brunswick–Freeport Corridor is one of the region’s most vibrant and productive landscapes. Here, farmland and forest meet in a way that nourishes both people and wildlife. The Bunganuc Stream watershed runs through the heart of this area, alongside working farms like Crystal Spring, Larrabee, and Milkweed Farms—places that provide healthy local food, anchor community traditions, and keep Brunswick’s agricultural heritage alive.
This corridor is also home to something rare and precious: the Little Bluestem–Lowbush Blueberry Sandplain Grassland, one of Maine’s most threatened natural habitats. Along with prime soils, cold-water streams, and nesting grounds for species like the Grasshopper Sparrow, these lands hold ecological treasures worth protecting.
Conserving the Brunswick–Freeport Corridor is about more than protecting wildlife or rare plants. It’s about ensuring that farms can keep feeding our community, that trails like those at Crystal Spring Farm keep offering places for people to gather, and that forests and wetlands keep filtering clean water and storing carbon. In short, it’s about preserving the balance between people and the land that sustains us all.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Bunganuc Woods, Crystal Spring Farm, Larrabee Farm, Mountfort Farm, and Morse Farm.
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Cathance River
The Cathance River winds gracefully through Bowdoin, Topsham, and Bowdoinham, offering a rare mix of beauty, wildness, and community connection just minutes from town. With much of its shoreline still undeveloped, the river feels like a hidden wilderness—one where you can paddle in solitude, walk for miles along public trails, or simply sit quietly and watch the osprey and eagles overhead.
The Cathance is alive with diversity: brook trout thrive in its cool tributaries, while smelt and stripers move through its tidal reaches. Its wetlands and estuaries provide feeding and nesting grounds for migratory birds, and its rare freshwater tidal marshes shelter unique plants and animals found in only a handful of places across Maine.
Conserving this river is about more than ecology—it’s about community identity and resilience. The Cathance sustains traditional livelihoods like farming and forestry, supports biodiversity, and offers all of us a place to connect with nature in meaningful ways. By protecting its forests, waters, and farmland, we are protecting both a treasured river landscape and the rural character that defines our home.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Alora Drive, Fairwinds Farm, Mill Forest, Head of Tide Park, Cathance River Nature Preserve, Robert Williams’ Preserve, Rogers Property, Tarbox, Bradley Pond Farm, and more.
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Farmland
Farms are at the heart of our community. They feed us, employ us, connect us to the land, and remind us of the deep agricultural traditions that have shaped this region for generations. Conserving farmland is about ensuring that these working landscapes remain part of our future—providing fresh, healthy food and supporting the people who grow it.
Farmland is also rich with ecological value. Open fields provide habitat for grassland birds, streams and woodlots support wildlife, and the soils themselves are a precious resource that, once lost, can never be replaced. Protecting farmland means protecting clean water, healthy ecosystems, and the scenic beauty of rural landscapes that define our region.
Every conserved farm tells a story. Crystal Spring Farm, a beloved community hub, hosts trails, events, and a bustling farmers’ market. Shoreline farms like Coleman and Packard help keep Middle Bay clean, while farms like Mountfort, Morse, and Ricker-Scammon preserve open space and historic character. Together, these lands sustain not only food production but also the cultural heritage and natural balance that keep our communities thriving.
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Little River
The Little River flows quietly through Topsham and Bowdoin, offering a rare sense of seclusion and wildness close to home. This hidden treasure is a place of calm and reflection, where people come to fish for trout, paddle by hand, swim in summer, or walk the surrounding trails.
Its untouched landscape provides refuge for wildlife and helps keep water clean, helping both the river itself and the larger Androscoggin into which it flows. Deer wintering areas, nesting sites for waterfowl and wading birds, and rare species downstream all depend on the health of this small but vital waterway.
Protecting the Little River is about protecting a sense of place—a quiet reminder that wildness still exists in our backyards. By caring for this river, we ensure that future generations will also know the joy of finding peace, solitude, and connection in one of our region’s most intimate natural landscapes.
The Land Trust’s Little River Preserve, found along Route 196, is a 4.7-acre property that helps safeguard this special waterway.
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Maquoit Bay
Maquoit Bay is one of our region’s most cherished natural and cultural treasures. Stretching from the head of the bay west of Mere Point Road to the Brunswick–Freeport line, this landscape is rich in life and deeply tied to the traditions of those who live and work here. Its saltmarshes, eelgrass beds, and mudflats are nurseries for fish, feeding grounds for countless birds, and home to rare species like the Saltmarsh Sparrow. For generations, shellfish harvesters and fishers have relied on these waters, while families and visitors alike come to clam, paddle, birdwatch, and swim.
Protecting land around Maquoit Bay is about far more than ecology—it’s about honoring and sustaining a way of life. Conservation here supports working waterfronts, traditional livelihoods, and abundant opportunities for recreation and learning. As sea levels rise, the bay’s marshes also provide a natural buffer against storms and flooding, making this landscape critical to community resilience.
By caring for Maquoit Bay today, we’re ensuring that it will continue to nourish both people and wildlife for generations to come.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Chase Reserve, Maquoit Bay Conservation Land, and the Stoddard Property.
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Middle Bay
Middle Bay, nestled between Route 123 and Mere Point Road, is a landscape where community, tradition, and ecology come together. Recognized as a Focus Area of Statewide Ecological Significance, it encompasses salt marshes, eelgrass beds, and intertidal flats that support both thriving wildlife and a strong local shellfish economy. This area is home to rare plants, significant habitats, and open farmland, all set within a landscape of stunning scenic beauty.
Generations of clammers, fishers, and coastal families have relied on Middle Bay for their livelihoods. Today, the bay continues to provide some of the best hard shell clam flats in the region, while also inviting birdwatchers, bikers, paddlers, and swimmers to enjoy its natural abundance. The open fields and historic views of Pennellville connect us to the past, while the marshes protect our future by buffering storm surge and adapting to rising seas.
Conserving Middle Bay is about protecting a whole way of life—wildlife, working waterfronts, and community traditions—woven together in a landscape that sustains us all.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Coleman Farm, Dunbar, Packard Farm, Peggy Coffin Pond Preserve, Pennell Brothers – Coffin Preserve, Pennellville Meadow, Shipyard, Silverman, and Skolfield Preserve.
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Muddy River
The Muddy River may be small, but it holds an outsized place in our region’s ecological and cultural history. Flowing through Topsham into Merrymeeting Bay, this quiet waterway is surrounded by rare freshwater tidal marshes that teem with life. It’s a gathering place for thousands of migrating birds, a nesting ground for eagles, and home to species like brook trout and rare plants found almost nowhere else.
But the Muddy River isn’t only about wildlife—it’s about people, too. For generations, Native peoples and later local communities have used this river for sustenance, and today it continues to offer opportunities for birdwatching, boating, clamming, fishing, and quiet reflection. Conservation here safeguards not only fragile ecosystems but also access to the water for everyone in our community.
By protecting the Muddy River, we’re honoring history, caring for biodiversity, and ensuring that future generations will still be able to experience the wild peace of this special place.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Cary, Muddy River, and Tarbox Preserve.
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New Meadows River & Woodward Cove
The New Meadows River and Woodward Cove form a stunning coastal landscape east of Route 24, where forests, marshes, and tidal waters come together in a rich tapestry of life. These waters and shores are vital for wading birds, waterfowl, and shorebirds, while healthy eelgrass beds and salt-hay marshes shelter fish, shellfish, and rare plants like Mountain Honeysuckle. It’s a place where both biodiversity and traditional livelihoods flourish side by side.
Generations of shellfish harvesters and fishers have depended on the coves and river, while community members enjoy boating, hunting, hiking, and simply taking in the beauty of open fields and forested trails. As the climate changes and seas rise, the marshes here provide essential space for migration and natural protection from storm surges—making this landscape just as important for people as it is for wildlife.
Conserving land in this focus area helps preserve working waterfronts, thriving marine ecosystems, and cherished community traditions, ensuring that this extraordinary coastal landscape remains healthy and accessible for generations to come.
Some Land Trust properties in this area include Howard Point, Lower Coombs Island, Neptune Woods, Upper Coombs Island, Woodward Cove, and Woodward Point Preserve.
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Water Access
Access to rivers, bays, and the coast is one of the most meaningful ways our community connects to the natural world. Yet, over the past century, as more shorelines became privately owned, opportunities for public access have grown fewer. That’s why the Land Trust has made it a priority to conserve and create welcoming public water access points—so that everyone, from shellfish harvesters to kayakers to families looking for a place to swim, can enjoy these vital shared resources.
These access sites are much more than doorways to the water. They protect wetlands, upland forests, and fragile habitats while also supporting clean water and healthy fisheries. They are places where livelihoods are sustained, recreation is celebrated, and community bonds are strengthened.
From small urban spaces like 250th Park to expansive natural areas like the Cathance River Nature Preserve and Woodward Point Preserve, our water access lands ensure that rivers and coastlines remain part of daily community life. By safeguarding these places, we keep alive the connection between people and water—so essential to our past, present, and future.
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Read more about the properties we are protecting.