Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Master’s student Parker Gassett provides an update on a Mitchell Center-funded project titled “Ocean and Coastal Acidification in Maine: Expanding Community Resilience Through Citizen Science, Outreach, and Education.” The project is led by Aaron Strong, assistant professor, School of Marine Sciences and Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow. Gassett, a dual Marine Policy/Marine Biology major, is a […]

A digital decision-aid tool aims to help organic farmers make permanent withdrawals from their agricultural weed seed banks Farming is a growing sector of the Maine economy, with substantial increases over the past 10 years in the number of farms, value of agricultural products, and number of farmers under the age of 34—respectively, increases of […]

UMaine workshop explores future of fisheries conservation In late September, the University of Maine hosted a workshop titled “Integrating Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management and Co-Management” at the Darling Marine Science Center in Walpole. Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management, or EBFM, has gained increasing interest among researchers, managers, and fishers themselves in light of current challenges to fisheries sustainability. […]

Master’s student Gabby Hillyer’s schedule is driven by tidal flow If you happen to be boating on the Medomak River in Waldoboro, Maine, you might encounter a little flotilla of buoys adorned with brightly colored flags drifting in and out with the daily tidal cycle. These “bucket drifters” are packed with scientific instruments that take […]

The Mitchell Center helps the Legislature evaluate a bill to reduce food waste and hunger in Maine When the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) needed an independent, outside organization to provide crucial data for Representative Craig Hickman’s proposed Act to Address Hunger, Support Maine Farms and Reduce Waste (Legislative […]

On June 19th, affiliates of the Maine Ocean and Coastal Acidification Partnership (MOCA) met together with representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and industry stakeholders at UMaine’s Darling Marine Center for a planning meeting to advance best practices in ocean and coastal acidification monitoring. The workshop […]

Native American ecological knowledge and western science will be integrated in some University of Maine science courses, with the goal of implementing the methods nationwide. With a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant, tribal and UMaine collaborators, including project leader and Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow Darren Ranco, will develop science courses that utilize Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western […]

Sustainability entrepreneur Tony Grassi brought an historic Maine mill back to life One of the first things Tony Grassi will do when he gives his Monday, October 23 Mitchell Center Sustainability Talk is make a slight adjustment to the talk’s title, “Build it and they will come.” “I’m going to start my talk with a […]

Bridie McGreavy and Sam Roy represent the Mitchell Center at International Conference At the end of August, Mitchell Center Postdoctoral Fellow Sam Roy and Assistant Professor of Communication and Journalism and Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow Bridie McGreavy journeyed to Stockholm, Sweden to take part in Resilience 2017: Resilience Frontiers for Global Sustainability—a three-day, multidisciplinary international […]

The Future of Dams project held an All-Team Meeting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)—a partner institution on the project—at the end of September. Below, Mitchell Center team members, postdoctoral researcher Sam Roy and Ph.D. student Tyler Quiring, provide brief highlights from three of the meeting’s break-out groups— Model/Data Integration (Roy) and Collaborative […]