Maine Earth First activist Sonia Acevedo of Union speaks with Irregular reporter Laura Dunham. COPLIN PLANTATION — More than 400 activists are expected to attend the 2010 Earth First Round River Rendezvous June 29 to July 6 camping off the Kennebago Road on property owned by Basil Powers.

Saturday, June 26, several members of the Maine Earth First organization were busy in the fields about a mile off the dirt road setting up army tents to house the large kitchen that will feed the mass of people expected to attend the week-long session.

One of those who came early was Sonia Acevedo of Union who made no bones about how she felt about what the group calls the devastation being done to the Maine woods.

The week-long gathering will center around Wood, Water, Wind and Waste and resisting the “Corporate Colonization of the North Woods Bio-region,” said Acevedo. She said that this bio-region stretches from Maine to Minnesota including northern Wisconsin and Michigan and the forest lands of New England.

“The mountains, the water, the woods and the energy of the state are under siege by corporate interests,” said Acevedo, “so we at Maine Earth First are fighting against industrial wind power, against bio-mass, waste incineration and against the development of ‘wild’ places in the woods.”

During this Maine Earth First gathering, “we hope to use four campaigns to make broader connections and coalitions with people working throughout the North Woods bio-region and the continent to jump start discussions around wilderness movements, re-wilding and restoring damaged lands and effective strategies for ecodefense,” Acevedo said. She said that she was a “homesteader” in Union and is against the way logging is done commercially.

Acevedo said there will be plenty of opportunity for those attending to “hoot and holler” around the campfires at night and to explore the beauty and the devastation being done in the area. Those attending also hope to “put a wrench in Plum Creek’s development plan at Moosehead Lake or any corporation that dares to threaten the North Woods,” she said.

Water is also an issue and a resource “that should be treasured and protected and not sold in the global marketplace, such as the (the way the) largest water supplier in the country Poland Spring (does),” she commented.

Another issue is waste. Maine used to be called a Paper Plantation but in the past decades has become known as a Waste Plantation, as it becomes less profitable to make paper, she said. Some of the largest dumps in the Northeast are in Maine. In the past five years, Earth First has stopped the construction of a waste incinerator, two dump expansions, and a new commercial dump on the Androscoggin River, said Acevedo.

Lastly, Maine Earth First is concerned about industrial wind power that according to their members is on a fast track to devastate the remote ridges of Maine. As a volunteer organization, Maine Earth First is seeking to protect the North Woods.

Sadly, said Acevedo, the Maine North Woods contains the largest area of undeveloped lands east of the Mississippi but it has been dominated by corporate interests. In reaction to this oppression of land wealth, a resistance movement called Maine Earth First was first formed.

Acevedo said that anyone is welcome to stop by the campsite and share their views with the members of the organization.

Jim Freeman of Verona Island, who will be here for the seven days, said Sunday, “At 61 years old, I’ve been in Maine for a long time and have a radical environmentalist frame of mind.” He is not only against the proposed east-west highway planned across the state because it will take down trees and dig up gravel, but is also against burning waste in Maine. “We are the only state that allows everything to be burned for big corporations like bio-mass plants... the materials going into the air are poison,” Freeman said.