Tapping the trees | To unlock its economic bounty, the Northern Forest needs investment
For nearly a century, the economic landscape of Maine’s northern forest has been dominated by a few large companies with the resources to utilize the region’s vast timber resources.
Yet in recent decades, many smaller saplings have taken root among these giant oaks. As traditional manufacturing industries have contracted in the face of global competition and changing markets, there has been a simultaneous proliferation of small businesses — niche manufacturers, ecotourism companies and others — throughout the north woods.
It is these small companies that will lead the next wave of economic development across the Northern Forest, a region stretching 400 miles from eastern Maine to the Adirondacks, according to a recent study commissioned by the governors of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.
But the study also notes that it will require new approaches by government and civic organizations if these upstarts are to succeed. “In an increasingly global marketplace, the region’s
leaders must invest extra effort to inform, connect and provide financial support and infrastructure to enable these ventures to thrive,” the 53-page report, “The Northern Forest Sustainable Economy Initiative,” reads in part.
The report, which was released in early October by the two New Hampshire nonprofits, the Northern Forest Center and North Country Council, is a blueprint for the economic future of the four-state region encompassing 30 million acres and 2 million residents. It includes specific recommendations for the economic revitalization of a region rich in natural and cultural resources, but challenged by its remote geography, a shrinking industrial base and an aging work force.
Among these 10 recommendations, several people involved with creating the report said three stood out as particularly pressing needs: upgrading the region’s telecommunications and transportation infrastructures and developing a renewable energy plan that utilizes local resources and reduces oil imports.
Joe Short works with the Northern Forest Center in Concord, N.H., and is the program manager for the Sustainable Economy Initiative, or SEI. Short said nearly all 60 people involved with putting together the report agreed that the lack of cell phone service and high-speed Internet connections is a major impediment to doing business in the Northern Forest.
“Access to high speed telecommunications came up loud and clear,” he said. “Lack of access to that kind of infrastructure really is a barrier to businesses of all sizes in that region.”
Robert Clark with the Northern Maine Development Commission in Caribou, who contributed to the report, said he has many times seen businesses decide not to relocate to Aroostook County because they could not operate with spotty cell phone coverage and dial-up Internet. In his part of the state, it’s not uncommon to see a sign beside the road marking a “cell phone booth” in the middle of the woods, Clark said. “If you stop and stand in that place you get a signal,” he said. “But beyond that you can’t.”
The SEI points out that the low density of residents in the Northern Forest provides little incentive for the private sector to build the needed communications infrastructure on its own. The report calls for a collaboration among residents along the northern border to persuade the region’s congressional delegations for public support of these efforts. The report likens the proposed effort to the Rural Electrification project in the 1930s.
Transportation and energy also stand out as major challenges to doing business in the north country. Companies in the Northern Forest rely more heavily on truck transportation than the nation as a whole, according to the study, and the region’s trucking costs are 45 to 65 percent higher than national averages. Residents and businesses in the Northern Forest have some of the highest energy costs in the United States. The region spent $6 billion on imported fuel in 2006, money that could have stayed in the community if there were more viable local sources of power.
The study recommends reconnecting the east-west freight line between New York and Maine by 2010 and exploring the possibility of high speed passenger rail as a means of linking the Northern Forest with southern New England and southern New York. It also calls on the four governors to make a one-year effort to draft a renewable energy strategy for the region.
Scott Stone, owner of Schiavi Homes, a manufactured home business with operations in Oxford and Bethel, said he agrees that transportation and energy are a tremendous barrier to doing business in northern Maine — but he said that in his view there are other things that need fixing first.
Stone, who employs 36 people and delivers homes throughout Maine and New Hampshire, said he believes that financially-strapped governments could not begin to adequately address the region’s biggest problems. Instead, he said he would like to see resources dedicated to less expensive projects, such as fostering a more entrepreneurial culture in the north woods.
In particular, Stone said he would like to see more effort toward helping people move away from what he described as a typical mindset of a mill worker to that of an employee invested in the success of a small company. He said this was one of the “monumental challenges” of running his business.
“The manufacturing base culture is one, very often, of ‘I don’t want to be noticed, I don’t want any responsibility, I don’t want any ownership,’” Stone said. “You can’t do business that way today. I need buy-in from my people.”
Stone’s concerns are reflected, at least in part, by the report, which also recommends developing programs to support entrepreneurial people in building businesses compatible with the natural and cultural resources of the Northern Forest. Among other suggested actions, the plan calls for setting up a capital fund to support micro enterprises and promoting entrepreneurial activities among young people.
Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce President Robin Zinchuk, who also served on the steering committee, said she sees this as one of the report’s most critical points.
“Our own children are being educated to leave the state or they are being trained to work for a company that is no longer there,” she said.
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