Good News! 11,000 acres of ancestral homeland returned to the Penobscot Nation in Maine

Today's blog is good news for the Penobscot Nation Native Americans who have finally recovered 11,000 of 30,000 acres. Imagine being thrown out of your homeland. Then hundreds of years later, some of it finally comes back to your descendants. That's what happened in Maine recently.

(Photo:  Photograph of the Wáhsehtəkʷ effort. Penobscot Nation and Trust for Public Land are working to restore nearly 30,000 acres to the Penobscot Nation. Once complete, it will be one of the largest land returns between a U.S.-based nonprofit and a tribal nation, while creating much-needed access to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. Credit: Chris Bennett, Trust for Public Land) 

 11,000 acres of ancestral homeland returned to the Penobscot Nation, Maine

Maine Public | By Kendra Caruso September 17, 2026 at 4:00 AM EDT 

 The Penobscot Nation is celebrating the return of about 11,000 acres of its ancestral homeland around the Penobscot River. The land return is the first phase of a larger project to give the tribe back around 30,000 acres just south of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

When the swath of land came up for sale more than three years ago, the Trust for Public Land bought it from timber harvesters and is now working with the tribe to raise money for the buy back, Betsy Cook of the Trust for Public Land says. The rest of the land will be returned after an additional $12 million is raised for the project.

The land holds cultural significance to the tribe and it has plans for how the land will be conserved and used, says Penobscot Nation Natural Resource Director Chuck Loring. The Penobscot Nation has plans to restore habitats around the land’s waterways, track ticks and monitor bat species, among many other conservation measures.

It will also give members of the Penobscot Nation access to natural resources for hunting, economic development and harvesting, says Loring. There are also hopes to create an access road to the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument near Millinocket through the land, says Loring. Right now there is no southerly access to the monument. But those plans are long term and still in development, and there are many more details to be worked out, says Loring.

The partnership between the Trust and Penobscot Nation represents a growing trend of conservation groups including native people in helping conserve land, where before conservation organizations have overlooked Indigenous wisdom around stewardship of natural resources, Cook says.

Often tribes are acting in an advisory role when the government or private conservation organizations are conserving land, says Loring. But land returns like this puts land back in tribes’ hands, allowing them to conserve it the way they see fit.