Articles
The dark secrets in the snow and sea
I did not expect my heart would ever break this way. December’s snowfall created a winter wonderland for my 5-year-old and 9-year-old, and nothing gives me more pleasure this time of year than to be out playing in the snow with them. While rolling around in a few feet of fresh powder I picked up
Lobster strategy: You go cheap, we’ll go quality
It’s the end of the fishing season and along the coast, lobster traps are stacking up in dooryards waiting for repair as the winter’s first snow looms. And as we plan our holiday meals, let’s remember to feature the local catch. Meanwhile, some in the lobster industry will continue working through the winter to find
Survival skills for the planet
Step into my shoes for a moment: You are the president of the Island Institute and have accepted an invitation to attend a discussion on Lake Como in Bellagio, Italy with 20 corporate and nonprofit leaders from around the world. Over the course of a week, you are to work as part of this new
What happens when land conservation meets community economy
Along this coast, each rock and tree leans defiantly into wind and waves that threaten change. Reflecting on this process, a good friend once poetically noted that Maine’s coast and islands resemble “a natural embattlement, protecting the coast from the ravages of development.” We agreed that change was a more deliberate, rooted process here, and
Climate change is complicated–so let’s discuss
I recently asked a shellfish grower and a lobsterman how they are coping with all they are learning about climate change. We were walking to dinner, having just spent the day together hearing presentations from fishermen and scientists on how ocean warming and acidification would make it increasingly hard to continue making a living in
The circle will be unbroken: island meetings create strength
I am propelled by days that begin on the water, days that begin with a crossing. Crossings connect news from up the bay with discussions begun a few weeks back, when we met bundled up to avoid the early July chill. These crossings and the island time that follow inform where we are all headed.
In transition, community is the constant
Life is a course, a series of waypoints, choices made, adventures unfolding. This is the sense that came over me as I walked onto the stage at Islesboro Central School on an all-too-rare sun-soaked Sunday in June. I felt at home. As Islesboro’s commencement speaker, I came to honor ten students at the end of
The Penobscot: a threatened bay
Once again there is good reason to be concerned about the future of Penobscot Bay. The ongoing lack of a regional approach to industrial development, a narrowing economic base, aging demographic trends and the shifting seas of global markets now conspire to pull apart what was once a coherent system. In 1996 the Island Institute
Island Schools are a Gifft to Education in Maine and Abroad
At the recent Sustainable Island Living conference and Island Teachers Conference island residents from Maine’s fifteen year-round island communities were joined by visitors from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Prince Edwards Island and the Downeast Coast of North Carolina. All came together to share ideas about how to ensure a vibrant future for islands, and who
Making History
A little less than two years ago I walked into an empty field on Swan’s Island and was overcome by the grief of standing where the community’s historical and library collections had been consumed by fire. In July of 2008, the old Atlantic School House that housed the collections was struck by lightning in the