A new land trust is making 66 acres along the Little River in Belfast open to the public
A Maine-based organization called Land in Common has led the formation of the Little River Community Land Trust, which will have a grand opening at the site on Sunday, Aug. 25 and is part of a larger effort to make land more open to communities that have had a harder time accessing it in the past, including people of color and members of the Wabanaki Nations.
The space, which used to be a private property, will have publicly accessible trails and access to the river. There’s a former home on the site, and organizers plan to host various types of indoor and outdoor community events there. They also eventually plan to make plants growing on the site available for Wabanaki communities to sustainably harvest.
“A lot of conservation lands are about separating humans from nature,” said one of the organizers, Ethan Hughes. “We have this protected land: you can hike in it, and we’re part of healing and regenerative agriculture, and all of these traditional, and now new ways of interacting with nature … which is from a lot of Indigenous knowledge.”
The leadership of Land in Common includes people from multiple racial and Indigenous backgrounds. That includes Autumn Jade Fitch, a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, who said that the principle of sharing will strongly influence the activities of the land trust.
“It’s important that we also share knowledge and resources,” Fitch said.
The opening ceremony on Sunday will run from 2 to 6 p.m. and include music, food, tea, walks on the trails, fiber-spinning demos and bike repairs. Organizers will also discuss their plans for the site and collect other people’s ideas. The land trust is located at 3 Adney Pl., off Edgecomb Road.
