Category: Blog

About 20 years ago, a family friend from California told me while she was visiting northern Michigan that she didn’t bother to eat seafood in the Midwest, because being able to enjoy the freshness and taste of seafood in her home state—a state that sits on the ocean—meant her palate didn’t appreciate the lesser quality that us land-locked citizens were forced to accept. At the time, I thought her comment was rude and pretentious, but then I started thinking about the fresh food I had access to. 

For the past 37 years, the Island Institute has worked in, and become a part of, Maine’s island and coastal communities. Once you’ve lived in a small community for a period of time, the interconnectedness of everything and everyone begins to be revealed. If you grew up there, it’s simply in your DNA. If you move there from “away” like many of us, it takes some time to begin to understand. I’m a firm believer in the theory that those who understand it stay, and those who don’t leave.

The Maine Primary Election for several state and local offices is now on Tuesday, July 14, 2020. This election—originally scheduled for June 9, but delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis—is about choosing nominees for U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats, as well as seats in the Maine state legislature and local offices. If you don’t vote, you are leaving it up to others to make these choices for you.

As we grapple with the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic on our businesses, there can be comfort in finding that we are not alone. That what we are seeing along Maine’s coast mirrors what is happening nationally, even internationally. The Small Business Roundtable, with Facebook, recently released their first State of Small Business Report, surveying 86,000 business owners to understand what is working for them, and where they are struggling.

During a time when seafood markets have plummeted and businesses are searching for innovative ways to stay afloat, cost-saving innovations may be critical, and climate adaptation and mitigation can be good for business. As the Maine Climate Council works to propose strategies to meet Governor Mills’ ambitious mitigation and adaptation goals, they are assessing the impacts of ocean climate change on ecosystems and businesses in our state and looking to marine businesses like Mook Sea Farms as a model for adopting innovative resiliency strategies to address the challenges posed by climate change.

In Maine’s seasonal economy, many rely on what we like to think of as the three-legged stool of seasonal work: a mixture of summer, winter, and year-round employment—or small businesses that contract and expand as the season allows. A downturn in one means that we try to increase sales in another. One leg gets a little wobbly, and we strengthen the others. We never planned for all three legs to be swept out from under us. Now, resilience has taken on a whole new meaning. It’s now about adaptation for survival.

The coronavirus, the pandemic, the lock-downs, the general disruption to our lives and those of our neighbors, the severe impact on businesses (especially the small and extremely small): all of these developments are entwined and are wreaking havoc on our communities and our ability to plan for the future. Unlike other economic downturns, the economic fallout from the coronavirus was sudden and steep. Like other economic downturns, the amount of time it will last—and which is the right path out—is unknown.