Soren Hermansen, Samso Island Denmark’s renewable energy ambassador to the world, was in Maine last month as a guest of the Island Institute. He visited islanders on Chebeague and Long, spoke to a crowd of 200 in Portland, met with 50-60 Vinalhaven and North Haven residents and students before appearing as the keynote speaker at the Sustainable Island Living conference in Belfast attended by 175 islanders and guests from all 15 year round islands.
Soren opened his remarks in Belfast with an astute observation that still resonates. Islands, he said, are not just model communities-islands are like small nations that can pilot approaches to government, the economy and civil society in ways all out of proportion to their size and geography. In the realm of economics, because islands have such sharp boundaries, and what comes on and off island is highly visible, the meaning of sustainability is stark and real. The balance of payments between what islands import and what they export stares islanders in the face every day.
For most of the past 20 years, Maine islands’ two largest imports have been food and electric power; in fact energy is the largest import to all Maine islands. In the early days of the Island Institute 25 years ago, alternative energy and island farming were big concern to many islanders, especially as the energy shocks of the late 70s reverberated through year round communities. Back then, photo voltaics had just recently come onto the residential market and Monhegan, which was “off the grid,” that is, not connected to the mainland by a submarine cable, had the highest photo voltaic capacity per capita of any community in the country. Photo voltaic electricity was expensive and required large banks of batteries to store power to turn on a few modest appliances and a sustained commitment among its users to be highly committed to understanding and moderating their power usage.
But then the price of a barrel of oil began to fall through the 1980s and declined to such a low level that by the mid 1990s it was possible to hold a gallon of bottled water on one hand and a gallon of gasoline in the other and realize that gas was cheaper than water! No wonder that energy conservation, which made fortunes for far-sighted entrepreneurs like Angus King, slowly slid off the national (and island) agenda.
In Denmark, however, the cost of energy did not fall off the national or island agenda. Beginning in 1997, the Danish government announced a national competition to recognize the first community to become energy independent. Samso Island signed up, according to Soren, because the island’s mayor and weighty Quakers thought they would be distributing generous national subsidies to their island constituents. Not so. Once they entered the competition, they discovered they had to do it themselves-and ten years later were crowned the winners. In the meantime, a Danish farm equipment manufacturer, Vestas, bought the designs of bankrupt American wind energy entrepreneurs and became the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world with 70,000 employees. Now Soren travels the world with a story of how tiny Samso and the rest of Denmark became energy independent.
If electric power is the islands’ most costly import, food is a close second. Those who attended the Sustainable Island Living conference could not help but be impressed by the number and passion of local farm and orchard growers who are beginning to reverse the imported food drain on Maine islands. Elliot Coleman and his wife Barbara demonstrated how they grow vegetables on their farm on Cape Rosier, year-round, in greenhouses and cold frames, off of which they shovel snow while hardy crops survive in their insulated snowsuits. And Russell Libby, the executive director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) gave a few simple lessons for why local food has a huge following. People like stories, he said, and local foods have great stories to tell: Taste (it’s better because it’s fresher), Place (consumers want to know where their food comes from) and Face (consumers want to support the people who are growing their food).
This is precisely the message of innovative marketing and branding project of Port Clyde fishermen who pioneered the country’s first “community supported fisheries” marketing program, Port Clyde Fresh Catch, based on the model of local farmers who market a share of their harvest to local customers. Laura Kramar, who addressed the conference, had a natural audience from local island farmers who instinctively understand the importance of marketing their “story.”
Maine lobstermen, who produce the islands’ most valuable export, and are reeling from the sudden and crippling decline in lobster prices, could learn an important lesson from island businesses that have learned how to market to consumers hungry for sustainable economics based on just such concepts as “Taste, Place and Face.”
Philip Conkling is the president of the Island Institute.