Upper Androscoggin River Valley
Why Is It a Focus Area?
The Nature Conservancy identifies the Upper Androscoggin River Valley as having high resilience to climate change due to diverse topography and abundant wildlife. These lands lie within an expansive, continuous forest landscape, crucial for supporting populations of species requiring interior forest conditions.
Connecting these areas is also crucial for allowing wildlife movement and genetic diversity across the landscape, in particular between the White Mountain National Forest and the Mahoosuc Mountain Range. In this focus area, the meandering river with many islands and wild streams entering from the north provide abundant crossing locations for wildlife.
The Upper Androscoggin River Valley starts at the river’s outlet from Lake Umbagog. Our work focuses on the portion from Gorham, NH to Bethel, ME. Here, the river flows through the picturesque, narrow river valley surrounded by high mountains. Low population densities, and the creation of the White Mountain National Forest in 1918, have left much of the river’s shoreline and adjoining upland forests undeveloped.
Who Made This Happen?
The resurgence of the Androscoggin from one of the most severely polluted rivers in the nation to its status today as a “Blue Ribbon Fishery” has catalyzed extensive conservation work since our founding in 1989. Working with the Androscoggin River Watershed Council, we have added boat launches and river take-outs to satisfy the desire for paddling and fishing this wild section of river, beginning in 1990 with MLT’s first conservation project. Over the past 35 years, MLT has also added dozens of islands and miles of riparian lands.
In 2006, MLT joined national and regional organizations in the Mahoosuc Initiative (MI) to respond to a dramatic shift in ownership of working forests in both states. MLT worked with MI partners, including The Trust for Public Land, in protecting nearly 45,000 acres of forest within the upper watershed. As part of the initiative, MLT acquired its own conservation easements–on First Mountain Forest and nearby Crow Mountain Farm–facilitating the State of New Hampshire’s conservation of the Philbrook and Croftie Farms.
These successes were complemented by significant acquisitions on the Maine side of the state line, of Valentine Farm in 2016 and McCoy-Chapman Forest in 2018, with the expected acquisition of the Tumbledown Dick Mountain by the end of 2025. Upstream in New Hampshire, our work expanded dramatically in 2022 with the purchase of the Shelburne Riverlands: more than 30 islands along an 8.7‑mile section of the Androscoggin. This allowed the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to acquire the 2670-acre Shelburne Valley Forest surrounding the Appalachian Trail, with MLT holding a conservation easement.
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What Is The Goal?
To date, MLT has conserved thousands of acres of forest and riparian lands within this focus area and has supported partners in protecting thousands more. Today’s challenge is a race against time: we are not even halfway toward conserving and connecting the remaining lands that will sustain biodiversity and ecological functions into the future under a changing climate.
In doing so, our goal is to work with our towns and residents with an eye on community needs like housing, vibrant economies, and places to escape and play.