Willing seller meets willing buyer. Negotiations ensue. A transaction takes place. Real estate changes hands. A deal is done.

Happens every day in Maine. No biggie, right?

Most of the time not.

Until the buyer is Roxanne Quimby, noted millionaire of Burt's Bees fame, and now budding conservationist.

Using her wealth Quimby has purchased at least one entire Maine township and a number of other large parcels of land, much of it in the vicinity of Baxter State Park.

And just yesterday we hear that she has purchased 4,900 additional acres in two separate deals east of the park.

Some folks think this a good thing. Others don't.

There have been concerns that Quimby has or will restrict access to her lands, potentially impacting uses that are considered "traditional": hunting, snowmobiling and the like.

I did note that on one map of her lands I saw that the parcels are labeled "sanctuaries."

Interesting. What might that imply?

Others hail the idea of locking up lands and preserving them for posterity itself, human uses a secondary consideration, if at all.

Where do you stand?

Quimby, as a private landowner, is free to do with her land as she wishes, within the bounds of good sense and the law.

That's just the way it is, like it or not. And it's something to consider when it comes to Plum Creek, another private landowner of note.

Like it or not...