Mitchell Center helps fund study showing how MDI tourism can use participatory planning to address climate change impacts

The Mitchell Center partially funded a study showing that bringing together academics and tourism developers on Mount Desert Island (MDI) is an effective way to identify climate change impacts and determine what can be done to address them given a community’s strengths, limitations and resources. Now, thanks to the work of a transdisciplinary group of UMaine graduate researchers and community stakeholders, MDI might have further information on a path forward to keeping the destination sustainable.

“MDI tourism professionals are very aware of climate change impacts to their businesses and the resources they manage. A participatory approach allows researchers to center that expertise and experience to help develop locally relevant solutions that consider existing resources, including existing partnerships and ongoing adaptation and mitigation projects,” says Lydia Horne, lead author of the study who completed the research as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maine.

Mount Desert Island tourism can use participatory planning to address climate change impacts, UMaine research shows