PORTLAND, Maine — On Wednesday, the World Monuments Fund named all of Maine’s lighthouses to its global watch list of significant architectural and cultural sites under dire threat around the planet.
The state’s iconic oceanside beacons, all intentionally built in the most precarious places, face increasing dangers from sea level rise and the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine, which make winter storms more intense. January 2024’s gales coincided with some of the highest tides ever recorded and damaged a third of the state’s lighthouses.
It’s hoped inclusion on the watch list will increase public awareness of the dangers, help raise funds for lighthouse protection and also convince lawmakers to change historic preservation regulations, which can slow down architectural changes needed to safeguard the structures.
In the past 30 years, the World Monuments Fund has contributed more than $120 million toward conservation projects at more than 300 Watch sites — including the famous statues at Easter Island, the Janus Arch in Rome, and the Nineveh and Nimrud Palaces in Iraq. With the increased visibility provided by the Watch, about $300 million more has been donated to the projects from outside sources.
“The Fund rarely names anything in North America to the list and has never included anything in Maine before,” said Ford Reiche, who owns and maintains two lighthouses through his private Presumpscott Foundation, which is based in Freeport.
Reiche’s foundation, along with Maine Preservation and the American Lighthouse Foundation, nominated Maine’s lighthouses to the global list. The World Monuments Fund received 215 nominations, from 69 countries, for this round of its biennial list but only chose 25 sites. Also on the 2025 list were sites in Ukraine, Spain, Tunisia and Peru. The moon was also included.
On Wednesday, Monuments Fund Executive Vice President Jeffrey Reinke described Maine’s lighthouses as “pillars of coastal identity.”
Maine Preservation added the lighthouses to its own list of most endangered historic places in the state last year.
Reiche said Maine’s lighthouses are in desperate need of protection. He pointed out only 18 are still owned by government agencies.
“The rest are mostly owned by very modest nonprofits who had no idea climate change was coming when they took ownership,” Reiche said.
Money raised can have an immediate impact on protecting the buildings and towers, according to Reiche. He suggests starting by raising lighthouse mechanicals, such as solar panels and fog signals, securing remote buildings to the ledges they sit on with cables and adding more robust storm shutters to windows.
“But because these lighthouses are all on the Historic Register, we need government approval for all that,” Reiche said, adding it took three months to get approval to begin repairs on his Halfway Rock Lighthouse in Casco Bay last year.
Reiche said he realizes that getting Maine lighthouses added to the global watch list won’t solve all the problems they face from climate change-fueled storms, but it’s a start.
“They are now facing a threat level not anticipated or seen before,” he said. “Some will likely be lost.”
