Newsletter Stories


Saturday, 01 November 2003
Hancock Land Company

Since 1979, the editors of Down East magazine, a prestigious and popular monthly magazine in Maine, have chosen an individual, group or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to preserving or improving the Maine environment.


In the past, this award has been bestowed upon groups such as the Land for Maine’s Future program for buying and conserving thousand of acres of North Wood wilderness, to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust for its work to preserve the islands off the Maine coast, and to York, ME resident Marion Fuller Brown for almost single-handedly forcing the state to ban billboards on Maine highways.

This year when the award, given by Governor John Baldacci at Maine’s executive mansion, was presented to Matt and Kevin Hancock, owners of Hancock Land Company, Matt Hancock said it was with “great humbleness" they accepted the award as the first for-profit company to do so in 25 years.

Hancock Land Company, an FSC FM/COC certificate holder since April 2002, currently owns approximately 40,000 acres of forestland in southern Maine. This amount has increased from 8,000 acres just five years ago, thanks to some innovative easement deals with environmental organizations. Jeff Clark of Down East said that they chose Hancock Land as this years winner because of their “unique strategy of working with conservation agencies such as The Nature Conservancy to preserve wild land in a part of that state that is under increasing development pressure—while also helping to assure the future of their own company. Their melding of good business with good conservation sets a standard for other business and conservation organizations in Maine."

Hancock Land has long been known in the Maine forestry community for their sustainable forest management practices, and in 2002 chose to seek FSC certification as proof of their commitment to that management. Hancock stated that, “I have no doubt our involvement with FSC was a significant inclusion in [Down East Magazine’s] thinking" in giving Hancock Land the award.