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Capital Campaign:
Clark Farm and Forest

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Capital Campaign

Clark Farm and Forest

The Facts Location Windham, Cumberland County, Maine   Size 550 acres   Benefits Walking trails, snowmobile trails, hunting areas and fishing access   Hundreds of acres of productive working forest and farmland soils   Frontage on two tributaries to the Presumpscott River - the Pleasant River and Black Brook   Valuable wildlife habitat, riparian corridors, wetlands, woodlands, and grasslands   Scenic vistas   Key connections to a larger recreation and wildlife corridor from the Black Brook Preserve to the Mountain Division Trail   Partners The Trust for Public Land Maine Farmland Trust

The largest contiguous property in Windham and one of the last major holdings in the region, Clark Farm and Forest is a gem unrivalled in the Greater Portland Area. This magnificent 550-acre property lies less than two miles from North Windham’s dense commercial strip and within 20 minutes of downtown Portland.

Given the extensive road frontage and easily-developable open land, this property is ripe for unplanned development. The property is bordered by new subdivisions and numerous stand-alone residential lots. The economic forces at play in southern Maine, identified by the Brookings Institute’s “Charting Maine’s Future” and the Governor’s Council on Quality of Place, are hard at work here and the threat to the Clark Farm and Forest is real and imminent.

The Trust for Public Land
(TPL), Maine Farmland Trust (MFT), the Windham Land Trust (WLT), and the Town of Windham are working with the landowners to ensure that Clark Farm isn't the next property on the chopping block. Conservation of Clark Farm will help turn the tide against sprawl that threatens the quality of our southern Maine communities.

To permanently protect this important landscape, the project partners have a conservation plan that will sustain and enhance the land’s many benefits for today and into the future. All of the values – farming, forestry, wildlife habitat, scenic vistas, outdoor recreation – will be conserved and enhanced. The best agricultural land will be conserved with conservation easements that will forever ensure the protection of farm soils, but also allow for appropriate public recreational use. Part of the farm will be offered to a new farmer, bringing renewed energy to the region’s agricultural sector. Sustainable forest management will continue while also protecting vernal pools and other critical habitat. A new preserve will be established along Black Brook and ultimately a trail network will link the Clark land with conserved land to the North, to the Pleasant River, and to the Presumpscott River corridor.