Contested conservation of the snowmobile commons: private land, public rights, and rural livelihoods in Maine’s social wilderness

Nearly half of Maine’s 16 million acres of privately-owned forestland has changed hands in recent decades. As the vast industrial forest contracts under the pressures of new development and land use constraints, the effects of these changes are strongly felt by a rural populace already contending with job losses and other consequences of economic restructuring. Local communities have expressed particular concern about the impacts shifts in land ownership and management are having on Maine’s “open land tradition”—the longstanding right of the public to permissively access and use private lands. Several new conservation landowners have levied restrictions based upon environmental ethics and values that exclude some customary uses of the land, and these owners have consequently emerged for many north woods residents as the greatest threat to the private commons. Using snowmobiling as an entry point, this research grounds these large-scale economic and environmental transformations and ensuing resource conflicts within the north woods communities being affected. I examine how snowmobiling—arguably the most contentious land use in present-day disputes—is deeply rooted in the working forest, its tradition of common property, and rural Maine’s communities, cultures, and economies. The activities of snowmobilers, their social relations, and institutional arrangements together comprise the snowmobile commons. My research contends that snowmobiling helps to make visible various practices of stewardship, local histories and heritages, collective involvement in land management, and the diverse economies that exist in Maine’s forests. Ultimately, this dissertation reveals that the heritage of snowmobiling in Maine and its integration with various aspects of rural life have left indelible physical, economic, and cultural imprints on the landscape that are not easily swept away by seemingly inevitable forces of change. This research extends First World political ecology scholarship by exploring the history and culture of America’s snowbelt, offering new insights into the diversity and viability of common property regimes, and reframing discourses of rural restructuring and studies of the transition to post-productivism in the global north. I employed a combination of research methods including in-depth interviews with key informants, participant observation, and analysis of formal and informal documents.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Marguerite L. Andrew