CAMDEN — The 1980s were a turning point for Maine. Fifty years after the Great Depression, an influx of people and money began to bring change. And most of it was good.
Philip Conkling, founder and president of the Rockland-based Island Institute notes that in 1980, Maine’s population hit 1 million, recovering from a century long decline from that peak. It’s the sort of fact that Conkling often drops into conversation about the challenges and opportunities that surround Maine’s islands and coastal communities.
Those who have known him for years describe him as thoughtful and insightful. His views on those challenges and opportunities tend to be grounded in historical, scientific and experiential context. In short, he knows what he’s talking about.
Thirty years ago, Conkling, then a forester who moved from surveying timber in northern Maine for similar work on islands, founded, along with photojournalist Peter Ralston, the Island Institute, an organization that works on education, marine, energy and publishing fronts to help support island communities. It is the publisher of The Working Waterfront.
Conkling, 64, is a 1970 graduate of Harvard where he studied government, and a 1976 graduate of Yale’s masters degree program in forestry and environmental studies. A native of New York state, he moved to Maine in 1973 where he first worked as staff naturalist at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound program.
Conkling is retiring as president of the organization he founded at the end of June, and Rob Snyder will take over.
Conkling sat down for an interview with The Working Waterfront on the deck of his Camden home.