{"id":29519,"date":"2023-04-25T12:51:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T16:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?page_id=29519"},"modified":"2023-05-02T12:23:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T16:23:28","slug":"a-career-in-conservation-frequent-retooling-required","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/a-career-in-conservation-frequent-retooling-required\/","title":{"rendered":"A Career in Conservation: Frequent retooling required!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tim<\/i><\/h4>\n

By Nate Poole<\/p>\n

The former president of MCHT describes the necessary skillset for a successful conservationist and explores how it has changed over his decades-spanning career\u00a0<\/i><\/h4>\n

If you\u2019ve ever walked your dog at a local land trust or experienced the splendor of Maine\u2019s coast via dirt single-track, there are good odds that those trails wind their way back to Tim Glidden.<\/p>\n

A career Maine conservationist, Glidden most recently completed a decade-long run as the President of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust<\/a> (MCHT). He also helped zone Maine\u2019s unorganized territory, served as an analyst for Natural Resources Committee at the Maine Legislature, and led the state\u2019s Land for Maine\u2019s Future<\/a> (LMF) Program.. On February 13, in a talk hosted by the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions<\/a>, Glidden discussed what he\u2019s learned over the course of fifty years, and how he has had to re-tool his skillset as the landscape of conservation, both political and literal, changed around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach generation faces some unique challenges, as well as some common challenges, all of which require dedicated and innovative leaders,\u201d Mitchell Center Director David Hart said during his opening remarks. \u201cTim has taken on many important leadership roles in his career \u2026 and I know that the current generation of students and graduates here at the University of Maine are doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glidden could not have become a conservation leader without making the effort to adapt his approach to environmental problems as times changed, but he noted that his success also has plenty to do with luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of my career has been one of serendipity. Wonderful things have come along at the right time. Staying open to that is an important part of a successful and rewarding career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"MaineAn eclectic education<\/h3>\n

Glidden holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in environmental studies from Colby College and a master\u2019s degree in forestry from Yale; while not uncommon areas of study by current standards, Glidden had the advantage of building a decidedly uncommon curriculum.<\/p>\n

He enrolled in the Environmental Studies program at Colby in 1971, the year after the major was created, and he conducted his graduate studies just as Yale was overhauling the Forestry program to permit more flexibility. As a result, Glidden was able to enroll in the same courses as economics and law students; this unconventional education broadened his intellectual horizons and challenged him to communicate across disciplines. At the same time, he took the opportunity to challenge his professors, stumping economics scholars as he asked them to quantify the value of an endangered species in a cost-benefit analysis. Questions like these helped him understand the limitations of other disciplines, as well as those of his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen opportunities present themselves to step off the conventional track, take a few. Diversify your perspective. Enrich your skillsets by learning how other disciplines approach the world,\u201d he said. \u201cTake some risks; don\u2019t be afraid to jump into a topic in which you may be underequipped. You may \u2026 learn that you actually have something to offer others who have been trained to see the world in very different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glidden\u2019s interdisciplinary education came in handy in 1984, when he was hired by Maine\u2019s Office of Policy and Legal Analysis to staff the state legislature\u2019s energy and natural resources committee. He supported a working group of legislators tasked with overhauling Maine\u2019s water quality classification and regulatory system, bringing it into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. His job was to be a neutral communicator, listening to competing arguments, seeking objective and accurate information, and sorting through pros and cons of different options. While his expertise was in forestry, not water quality, Glidden\u2019s lack of prior knowledge was a blessing. He said that a key factor when working with policymakers is trust, and the representatives on the committee trusted him because he was a generalist; he knew enough to communicate the information accurately, but not so much that he approached subjects with preconceived notions or motivations.<\/p>\n

This experience with the legislature taught Glidden another valuable lesson: trust and personal integrity are necessary and precious resources in the process of collaboration with decision-makers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put, they trusted that I was telling them everything I had learned about the topic, from testimony and research, and that I had no dog in this fight. If they trusted me, I could be useful. If I lost their trust, I was done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Forest\"Grounded Expertise<\/h3>\n

Glidden learned another important lesson about creating conservation policy when he worked at the Natural Resources Council of Maine<\/a> (NRCM); namely, that regulations alone cannot always get you there from here.<\/p>\n

In 1997, a hotly contested decision over the fate of Maine\u2019s 17-million-acre North Woods was decided by a state referendum. Developed as an alternative to a referendum to ban clearcutting outright, \u201cThe Compact for Maine\u2019s Forests\u201d, was developed as a compromise between environmentalists, including NRCM and Maine Audubon, and major industrial North Woods landowners with the purpose of limiting how much timber foresters would be permitted to clearcut as well as the total timber that a landowner could harvest annually. Supporters claimed the compact would represent a major step forward in promoting the sustainable management of Maine\u2019s forests, while opponents argued that it would do just the opposite and effectively enshrine industrial clearcutting in state law. The Forest Compact was ultimately rejected by Maine\u2019s voters.<\/p>\n

Glidden said that years after the failure of the compact, he had dinner with a former executive at Georgia Pacific, then a major North Woods landowner. The executive told him that while the regulatory measures were never passed, many of the corporations took the referendum as a clear warning from Maine\u2019s citizens and revised their forest practices themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the political failure of the compact at the ballot box, the major landowners learned that Maine\u2019s citizens cared a lot about their forests and even if they weren\u2019t wild about the solutions they were being presented, they were really not happy with the status quo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Through the Forest Compact saga, Glidden not only learned that he had little taste or affinity for the conflict inherent in the field of political advocacy, but that they were limits to what could be accomplished with a strictly regulatory approach. Especially in a state like Maine, successful policies need to coincide with the grassroots, ground-level efforts of private citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome complex problems are best solved by harnessing the creativity of people working on the ground, in the field, applying and adopting their expertise to widely varying conditions across a landscape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A small place in the cosmos<\/h3>\n

Raised Episcopalian, Glidden struggled during his upbringing with the doctrine of dominion over the natural world that seemed to be a foundational concept in western religion. Initially, he settled into an attitude of stewardship, that humanity ought to be responsible for managing and protecting, rather than dominating, the natural world around it. However, he eventually decided that even that philosophy ultimately seemed to be built on erroneous assumptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could I, or any human, have sufficient knowledge of this complex, mysterious, and wonderful world necessary to steward all of creation,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more I thought about it, the smaller my place in the cosmos seemed and the more humility seemed warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glidden found ready application for this attitude of humility and the practical lessons from his career as he began to lead land conservation efforts with LMF and MCHT. He approached this stage of his career with several key principles: 1) Land conservation can be an effective complement to environmental regulation; 2) Little can be accomplished without the trust and buy-in of community members; and 3) Conservation demands strategic, comprehensive planning as well as robust partnerships.<\/p>\n

These lessons have yielded much success for organizations like MCHT, having helped to increase the amount of conserved land in Maine from 5% in the \u201880s to more than 20% today.\u00a0 Even more impressive than the numbers have been strategic efforts like the Bagaduce Fishways Project<\/a>. Over five years, MCHT collaborated with community members and organizations like the Penobscot Alewife Committee to reconnect the waterways on the Blue Hill Peninsula by using the Bagaduce River as a uniting artery. Today, every obstruction in every significant waterway in the region has been removed or bypassed, creating the first fully-restored fish passage in Maine.<\/p>\n

\u201cGone are the days when a land trust can quietly just buy a nice piece of land and then try to keep it a secret, locked away. Community well-being and ecological well-being are clearly intertwined. The successful land conservationist today is listening to understand community needs as much as they are out there trying to study wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he is now a year into retirement, Glidden will remain involved in ongoing conservation and sustainability efforts in Maine, including his role as a newly-appointed member of the Mitchell Center\u2019s Advisory Board<\/a>. While the future is as uncertain as ever, Glidden\u2019s adaptability and humility are sure to remain constants.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

For nearly a decade, the Mitchell Center has hosted its\u00a0Sustainability Talks<\/i>\u00a0series during the fall and spring semesters, providing students, faculty, citizens, and others in and outside of the University of Maine community with opportunities to learn about the multi-faceted nature of sustainability problems from the researchers, professionals, representatives, and every-day people finding innovative ways to address them.\u00a0Recordings of past talks are available online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nate Poole The former president of MCHT describes the necessary skillset for a successful conservationist and explores how it has changed over his decades-spanning career\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever walked your dog at a local land trust or experienced the splendor of Maine\u2019s coast via dirt single-track, there are good odds that those trails wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29519","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"mitchellcenter","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/mitchellcenter\/"},"comment_info":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29519"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29655,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29519\/revisions\/29655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}