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New resource manager for Baxter State Park

BAXTER STATE PARK — It is with great pleasure that the Baxter State Park Authority announces the appointment of its new Baxter State Park Resource Manager, Michael Pounch.

Pounch comes to the park with rich experiences in forestry in the Acadian Forest. As a modeler for the Maine Mountain Collaborative and New England Forestry Foundation, Pounch has been at the forefront of a region-wide effort to develop standards for “exemplary” forestry. As a special assistant to the Maine High Peaks Program, he has conducted landscape level financial and habitat analyses to support the Western Mountains Regional Conservation Partnership Program and worked with multiple stakeholders to develop national programs for wildlife habitat management. Pounch holds a Masters of Forestry from the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources.

He will manage the park’s 29,537 acre Scientific Forest Management Area (SFMA), including forest management planning, resource monitoring, and overseeing operations, and will serve as part of the park’s administrative team.

Baxter State Park is a 209,644 acre public trust located in north-central Maine and headquartered in Millinocket. Gov. Percival Baxter made it his life’s “magnificent obsession” to purchase these lands and donate them to the people of the State of Maine. With this gift, he left a governance structure unique from all other Maine state parks, a large endowment that allows the park to operate independently from the State general fund, and several directives that describe how to manage the park. These include a focus on preserving the wildness of the park above all else and providing “a showplace for those interested in forestry” in the SFMA.

The Baxter State Park Authority, comprised of the Maine Attorney General, the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Director of the Maine Forest Service, has been charged since 1939 with carrying out Gov. Baxter’s vision of protecting and preserving Baxter State Park and ensuring that it remains “forever wild.”

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