The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability

By Gianna DeJoy   AbstractTwelve Maine hospitals have ceased offering obstetric services since 2009 – nine since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, large swaths of the state are over an hour-long drive from the nearest hospital with a maternity unit. While the health and community impacts of maternity unit closures are […]

By Cameron Barone   Resource scarcity is a driving narrative element in the genre of speculative fiction. The treatment of the world’s resources is a pressing concern amidst the climate crisis, the outbreaks of viruses like bird flu and Covid-19 variants, global wars and conflicts, and an increasingly technologically driven world. This article examines how […]

Nicole Grillo1, Kelsey Flores1, Matthew Hartt1, Savannah Hustus1, Thomas E. Stone1,2* 1.  Husson University, Bangor ME., 044012.  University of Maine, Orono ME., 04469*Corresponding author: thomas.e.stone@maine.edu, 207-581-1237   AbstractIn order to meet decarbonization goals associated with mitigating climate change, many states and the federal government offer a variety of rebates and tax incentives for heat pump […]

By Suz Okie and Sydney Harris   On a trip to your local haunt, you may have noticed a rising trend: a growing number of coffee shops, cafés, and food establishments across Maine — and indeed across the country — are distributing compostable cups, straws, and containers.  With concerns escalating over single-use plastics and the limitations of […]

By Alex Scearce     This piece aims to place the scale of PFOS contamination of agricultural soil into context. The data presented here are based on results from a study conducted for my Masters thesis “Uptake Takeaways: Soil-to-Crop Movement of Per- and Polyfluoralkyl Substances (PFAS) in a Paired Field and Greenhouse Study”, which took place […]

By Aurora Green   The locality, organization, and intimacy of contra dancing mirror the values of sustainability. Friends and strangers carpooling to distant barns to spin and do-si-do through the night. What could better embody Maine’s rural community spirit? Many dances in contra are performed “in the round” (i.e. orbitally). To me, these formations echo […]

By Mara Scallon   Nineteen of us occupied several rows within the classroom, seated in every other lecture hall seat, with colorful hiking packs jammed into the seats in between. This was a Wilderness First Responder recertification course, and many of us were wearing layers of outdoor gear, broken-in hiking boots, and well-loved brimmed hats. We […]

By Jordan Ramos   This watercolor painting series illustrates the Maine wild blueberry harvest heritage focusing on small family farms and local and migrant hand-rakers through landscape and harvest scenes. Wabanaki people were the first to manage the fields with a stewardship relationship and the practice of hand-raking. In the early 1900s, hundreds of people […]

By Harrison Goldspiel   How Can a Head It began with a man and a woman, as many stories do. They met on the beach in the Rockaways at the southern edge of Queens. It was the crux of the 20th century, an indelible ecotone of time. Families sprawled across the sandy peninsula like so […]

By Chantelle Flores   “Elegy From Millinocket” delves into our collaborative identity with nature in reflecting on my great grandmother’s embrace of nature in daily life. I question the common notion of a ‘return’ to nature, as how can one return to a world they have never truly left? Although we spend a majority of […]