UNITY — Sebasticook Regional Land Trust’s recent purchase of the 439-acre Moulton’s Mill Preserve increased the trust’s total conserved acreage to 2,800.

The preserve, said Jennifer Irving, includes two miles of frontage on Twenty-five Mile Stream in Unity, remnants of an 1800s sawmill and a working woodlot.

Irving, executive director of the trust, said the acquisition advances the nonprofit’s mission to conserve “clean water, productive farms that provide local food and jobs, well-managed working forests, places to hunt, fish and recreate with our children.”

The trust bought Moulton’s Mill Preserve with a $170,000 grant from the Maine Natural Resources Conservation Program.

That program, said Irving, lets developers who have affected natural resources, usually wetlands, pay a fee to the Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Groups seeking to preserve natural resources can compete for grants funded by that pool of money.

“It’s in the heart of the Unity wetlands and we scored very well (in the application process),” she said. “We are very grateful.”

Alex Mas, who is with The Nature Conservancy, manages the Maine Natural Resources Conservation Program.

He said the parcel has valuable wetlands, habitat and stream frontage, and that the trust had a solid plan to restore affected areas.

In the last three years, Mas said the program has funded about 42 projects totaling $15 million statewide that help maintain “the fabric of the state.”

Irving said Moulton’s Mill Preserve will be protected as an area for the public to hike, canoe and fish.

The trust, she said, will also manage sustainable timber operations on the parcel and pay taxes on the property.

Irving said there’s an misperception the land trust removes property from tax rolls and locks out the public.

“In reality (the) work had to keep the land part of the community,” she said. “It stays on the tax rolls.”

The trust, which started in 2004 as Friends of Unity Wetlands, considers working timber forests and farms on equal footing with wild bogs, streams and fields.

Because the trust seeks to preserve both economic and ecological benefits of land, Irving said it’s vital to keep farmers farming and woodlots working.

When farmers facing financial pressures sell farmland for houselots, Irving said “instead of growing food, we’re growing houses.”

And once rich farmland land is lost to house lots, it’s lost as a farm resource, she said.

Irving said the group also encourages outdoor recreation and awareness of the bounty the land provides.

It does so, she said, by organizing hikes and canoe trips, sponsoring education programs on woodlot management and hosting wreath-making workshops.

The trust also does a lot of fundraising.

Irving said it is $40,000 away from being able to buy 200 acres of land in Burnham.

That land, she said, includes another mile of frontage on Twenty-five Mile Stream.

With that purchase, Irving said a canoe route would be in place to paddle from Unity to Burnham.

Unity and Burnham are two of the 42 towns under the umbrella of the Sebasticook Regional Land Trust.

Its service area covers 900 square miles from Wellington to China.

One of the trust’s challenges, said Irving, is to promote conservation.

In rural communities, she said due to lack of sustained development, sometimes there is a lack of urgency to proactively conserve property.

“But sprawl is coming,” Irving said.

Beth Staples — 861-9252

[email protected]