Accessing the Maine Coast: Everything you wanted to know about rights and responsibilities of accessing the coast of Maine

Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine is thrilled to announce the comprehensive update and re-release of Accessing the Maine Coast, a long-standing web resource containing information to help waterfront users, coastal communities, businesses, landowners, and others address issues related to coastal access and working waterfronts in Maine.

The intent of this website is to offer tools, resources, and information to help facilitate cooperative approaches to the ever-growing complexity of working waterfront and coastal access issues in Maine.

The new website is up and running at https://umaine.edu/accessingthemainecoast/.

The website offers tools, legal information, a robust glossary, and references to the large body of work and organizations working on these issues. It offers a Q&A format for the following three entities: waterfront users (fishermen, harvesters, aquaculturists, recreational boaters, and others), government and public entities (municipalities, state programs, and others), and private landowners (waterfront infrastructure owners, private property owners, and others).

In addition to bringing the entire content up to date, this update adds a new section on Resilience Initiatives, provides a home online for the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition, and references resources that address the impact of storms and other hazards on the waterfront.

To keep up to date on evolving aspects of coastal access law, partners are working with the National Sea Grant Law Center to expand the website’s discussion of recent legal proceedings related to ownership of the intertidal, public access on private property, and seaweed harvesting rights. These updates are forthcoming.

The original partners on the project (Maine Sea Grant, Maine Coastal Program, The Center for Law and Innovation at the University of Maine School of Law, and Island Institute, with support from the National Sea Grant Law Center) launched the site in 2007. The 2025 round of updates was completed with help from Maine Coastal Program, Island Institute, UMaine MARINE, Coastal Access Strategy Exchange, and the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition.

For more information about the site or to suggest material to add to it, please contact wwfaccessinfo@maine.edu.