sticking around

There’s an old sugar maple near the trailhead of the Muskie Trail, just down the hill from my office, that’s shed most of its limbs over the past decade. But each spring, we’ve seen it leaf out for another year of life. Staff member Lynne refers to it as “Yet Tree Persisted.”

I love that nickname. Yes, it’s a reference to Congressional steel, but it also reminds me of poet Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” a beloved book. Nature does so much for us, for free, with no expectation of thanks or recompense. Nature persists, through thin years and thick.

For the past decade, the Laudholm Trust, the nonprofit partner of the Wells Reserve, has been amassing a “rainy day fund.” We’ve built our treasury with the goal of persisting through the higher tides, stronger storms, and spiking temperatures of coming, indisputable climate change. But then this year’s political climate changed so much, so rapidly. We now expect to use some of our accumulated resources to adapt to this new era of troubling uncertainty.

Along with so many other important and vital services and sites, the operation and even existence of this center for coastal science, education, and conservation — your Wells Reserve — is threatened. Over the next few months, decisions made in Washington, D.C., so far from Maine, could have profound negative consequences for so much of what we all hold dear. Ongoing, drastic federal funding cuts to science, research, healthcare, and environmental protection will imperil our shared future.

For forty years, the Wells Reserve has been a protected place for beauty, truth, and peace. I cherish these things; I know for certain that we will all need more of them in the years to come. Though it will be forced to adapt, the Wells Reserve will persist. With your help, it will be the tree that keeps on giving.

Nik Charov
President, Laudholm Trust
Chairman, Wells Reserve Management Authority

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