A twenty-eight-acre parcel of land has been purchased by a nonprofit to expand the Bethel Community Forest.
Gabe Perkins, Executive Director of Inland Woods and Trails, secured the purchase with a loan from The Conservation Fund. He says the vision for the parcel includes building administrative offices for the nonprofit, creating a trail center, and constructing cabins for public use as well as affordable housing.
"We want to try to be responsive to community and community needs. So that, in the Bethel area and in many other areas of the state, is workforce housing," Perkins said.
The fifteen-hundred-acre Bethel Community Forest was created in 2019 with funding help from the Land for Maine's Future grant program, The US Forest Service Community Forest and Open Space grant program, and local donors and foundations.
Inland Woods and Trails owns the working forest and also manages eighty-five miles of public trails that connect to the town of Bethel, the Sunday River Resort and Mt. Abram.
