The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability

By Anne Cyr   New Year’s Day My tote road – at least I’ve considered it mine these past twenty-five years. One December day a sign appeared  at the end of that road: American Forest Management it proclaimed. With trepidation I walked, and the farther I walked,  more swaths of orange tape were revealed.   […]

By Jeremy Szuder   Gardens During Rains Hiding away in the gardens during rains, a brisk chill with wet pavement invites all, but only the committed will attend.   Few umbrellas float in the distance between trees, setting their sails on expedition slowly, bright colors shaped   like upside down radar dishes of faint signals, […]

By Tom Lagasse   Fireflies Mid-summer, mid-evening the blue- black night shrouds the self to become   A hidden witness, like the backyard maple and the forsythia bush, to the nocturnal    Life emerging from its slumber.  Again,  I wait expectantly for the fireflies to return.     Once constant stars on a cloudless  night, they […]

Rebecca Champagne Ph.D. Candidate, Ecology and Environmental Sciences University of Maine   Welcome to the sixth issue of Spire! We are excited to share with you a variety of submissions including photography, poetry, art, and personal stories. We are pleased to announce Rachael Murphy as the winner of our cover art contest. Her art series, […]

Artwork by Rachael Murphy  Brice the Behemoth                                               Honey Hole    Coo’s Canyon                                            […]

By Matt Bernier    Sorry for the inconvenience, but I think you should know that the hagfish await, right whale carcass bobbing for days with the buoyancy of the ship that struck her,   afloat with last gasps of salty air and gas from tons of undigested zooplankton as containers head to port in diesel […]

As residential and second-home development chip away at Maine’s forests, will we recognize them as the climate assets they are?   By Erica Cassidy Dubois   Over the past two years, a property boom has swept through Maine. Contractors and real estate agents had record seasons. Property values soared. Camps, residential homes, and lots that […]

Photography by Logan Kline   Artist Statement In the late summer of 2020, I had a relapse of a severe disk herniation that effectively rendered me immobile. In the first month of recovery, I would spend mornings in my bed watching out the window as nuthatches cached food in our trees and chickadees squabbled over […]

By Paloma Henriques   Inequity is a choice that we make as a global society through the economic systems that we hold up as legitimate. We currently have the capacity and resources to meet the basic needs of all human beings on the planet (Binder et al. 2020), but the neoliberal capitalism that privileges growth […]

By Paloma Henriques    Capitalism’s demand for continuous economic growth is driving the climate and biodiversity crises, while continuing the legacy of colonialist exploitation. Efforts to reduce emissions linked to cycles of consumption and production are increasing; however, there are great opposing forces. While the affluent continue amassing wealth and power, changing the system will […]