Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Eight students will present five-minute talks on their sustainability research in Maine. Selected Presentations: Graduate Responses of potato varieties to Dickeya dianthicola and Pectobacterium parmentieri that cause blackleg and soft rot Nayara Fabiola Marangoni, School of Food and Agriculture Degradation of the Herbicide Atrazine from Drinking Water using Photocatalysis Matthew A. Moyet, Ecology and Environmental […]

Speakers: Afton Hupper, Taylor Lange, Tim Waring, Local Food Lab, UMaine Sustainable solutions are not always win-win. The hardest sustainability challenges are social dilemmas in which the best outcome for individuals (e.g. more comfortable lifestyle) conflicts with the best outcome for the group (e.g. avoiding overuse of environmental resources and natural disasters). But social dilemmas […]

Dirty Weeds Done Dirt Cheap: Coupling weed ecology and economics to aid farmer decision-making Speaker: Sonja Birthisel, PhD Student, Ecology & Environmental Sciences, UMaine Weeds are a major economic concern for farmers worldwide. The State of Maine is home to a growing population of beginning organic farmers, for whom weeds are especially challenging. Organic farmers […]

The Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory: Origin, Scope and Utility in Understanding Global Warming Impacts on Fish Speaker: Dr. Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia Professor, PI: Sea Around Us Project There is need for a broad guiding theory based on first principles to interpret the many ways that fishes (and invertebrates) are affected by increasing temperatures […]

Sustainability on the Front Lines of Climate Change: Inside a UMaine Travel Study Course Speakers: Brandon Lieberthal, Postdoctoral Researcher, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UMaine Allison Gardner, Assistant Professor, Biology & Ecology, UMaine A complex dual relationship exists between climate change and sustainable development. Through its detrimental effects on food security, fresh water access, and human […]

The Puzzle of Making the Local Food Movement Sustainable: The Challenge of the Supply Chain UMaine Farm to Institution Team Speakers: Mark Haggerty, Linda Silka, Stephanie Welcomer, Melissa Ladenheim and Michaela Murray Some of the most important questions facing the local food movement in Maine relate to sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. One solution has […]

Crossing boundaries to better understand forest sustainability and the influence of forest certification Erin Simons-Legaard, Research Assistant Professor, School of Forest Resources, UMaine Multiple, often conflicting forest values are maintained only when management actions are integrated over large areas. To-date, two key mechanisms have been utilized as safeguards for forest sustainability in Maine: regulations (such […]

Dr. Adnan Rajib, ORISE Postdoctoral Fellow, US Environmental Protection Agency With growing stress from natural and man-made factors, there are distinct changes in the spatio-temporal pattern of water availability and hydrologic extremes. Knowing how and where these changes are occurring as well as their future expectancies are imperative for sustainable water management and policy decisions. […]

Nancy E. Smith, Executive Director, GrowSmart Maine The implications of land use decisions on where we choose to live and how we make a living. People choose to live in Maine for many reasons: connections to family, our iconic landscapes and architecture which foster farming, fisheries, forestry and beautiful downtowns, villages and Main Streets, our […]

Speaker: Paul Anderson, Executive Director, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management (EBFM) is not a new concept and has been studied and attempted in many places around the planet. In its simplest form, EBFM considers not just how to manage individual species, but rather the relationships between species. At a more a complex […]