Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

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 […]

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 […]

Speakers: Allison Gardner, Assistant Professor, Biology & Ecology, UMaine; Sandra De Urisote-Stone, Assistant Professor, Forest Resources, UMaine Nature-based tourism is tightly coupled with the transmission and dynamics of vector-borne infectious diseases (i.e., those that are transmitted via the bite of an infected arthropod, such as a mosquito or a tick). Domestic and international travel likely […]

The conference was launched in 1994 by the Senator George J. Mitchell Center at the University of Maine with a primary focus on one of Maine’s central challenges– the future of its water resources. Originally designed to provide a collaborative nexus for water resource professionals, researchers, consultants, citizens, students, regulators, and planners to exchange information […]

Speaker: Dan Coker, The Nature Conservancy in Maine While there are many approaches to achieving conservation success, influencing public policy is a critical piece of the puzzle. Providing policy makers with tools that clearly illustrate scientific information is an effective way to help them make informed decisions about conservation issues that impact their constituents and […]

Governing the vulnerabilities of urban infrastructure to water scarcity and flooding – The example of Mexico City Marco Janssen, Professor, School of Sustainability and Director, Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment, Arizona State University Many megacities such as Mexico City will experience in the coming decades an amplification of the existing challenges of water […]