UMaine Offering New Large-Scale Conservation Internship

Contact: Sarah J. Nelson (207) 581-3454 or sarah.nelson@umit.maine.edu

The University of Maine is offering students a chance to gain training and service in large landscape conservation through a new internship opportunity.

The Acadian Internship in Regional Conservation and Stewardship is a 6-week summer course and internship program with the goals of training students, providing hands-on field internships, and strengthening the understanding and practice of large-landscape conservation across the Acadian region.

The Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC) facility, which is located in the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park, will serve as a base campus while students explore the park and other areas in a region that stretches from the Penobscot River to southwestern New Brunswick.

Initial planning for the program is being funded by a $4,988 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration grant to UMaine’s Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research via the SERC Institute. The Quebec-Labrador Foundation has provided early and ongoing support for planning of the program.

Rob Lilieholm, UMaine E.L. Giddings Associate Professor of Forest Policy, and Megan Gahl, a research scientist at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, will be the instructors.

Students will work across boundaries to achieve measurable conservation and economic development goals, creating an ecologically sustainable, economically resilient and socially responsible vision for the future of the Acadian region.

The program includes use of lecture sessions, panel discussions, case studies and field  work.

Program partners include the Quebec Labrador Foundation/Atlantic Center, SERC Institute, Frenchman Bay Conservancy, Unity College, University of New Brunswick, National Park Service at Acadia National Park, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Maine State Planning Office.

Mitchell Center Assistant Research Professor Sarah J. Nelson said there is space for about 20 undergraduate and graduate students for the internship. Students who want to take the class for credit may do so through UMaine’s Summer University.

For more information about the combined course and internship, go to http://acadianinternship.wordpress.com