Category: In the news

If you’ve ever dreamed of moving to an idyllic vacation spot, Maine’s coastal islands offer a cautionary tale.
Jobs are limited to lobstering, boatbuilding and caretaking of summer residences. And lousy Internet service makes telecommuting difficult to impossible. But now some Maine lobstermen and would-be telecommuters are banding together to pay for costly infrastructure they hope will help preserve a threatened way of life.

On Wednesday, August 2 at 10:30 a.m., the Island Institute will host a panel discussion on women’s views and voices in Maine’s island communities.
The talk, “Making it Here: Women’s Views, Women’s Voices,” will be led by island residents and writers, Barbara Fernald, Courtney Naliboff, and Sandy Oliver, and moderated by Tom Groening, editor of The Working Waterfront.

The Island Institute’s Island Fellows Program was recently recognized as the 2017 Outstanding Program by the Community Development Society, a national professional society for practitioners of community development.
The annual award is presented in recognition of superior programming that exemplifies and positively influences community development practice. It was one of nine awards presented at the organization’s Annual International Conference which took place in Big Sky, Montana, in June.

Maine is the most rural state in the nation and, also, one with some of the poorest internet access. Out on the coastal islands, internet service ranges from lousy to nonexistent.
Residents of the Cranberry Isles, from lobstermen to telecommuters, are banding together to pay for costly new infrastructure they hope will help preserve a threatened way of life.

Historian and author John R. Gillis will speak on human movement and its importance to evolution on the coasts of Maine and elsewhere during the Island Institute’s Summer Lecture Series Wednesday, July 19, at 10:30 a.m.
The talk, “Our Unsettled Shores; Why Coasts and Coastal People are Different,” will look at the history of human movement by land and water and the role it has played in human evolution along our coasts. The event will take place in the fourth floor conference room at the Island Institute, 386 Main S., and is free and open to the public.

Midcoast Leadership Academy and the University of Maine Hutchinson Center have announced completion of the academy’s seventh program year and the July 2 graduation of 18 current and prospective community leaders.
Graduates this year were Alyssa Ames, practice manager at Waldo County General Hospital; Penson Bartlett, North Region manager, Jobs for Maine Graduates; Maggi Blue, freelance artist and designer/marketer; and Megan Brackett, finance director, Town of Rockport.

The Island Institute recently awarded scholarships to 71 island students pursuing post-secondary education at colleges, universities and technical schools across the United States and Canada.
The scholarships, made possible by the Island Education Fund, totaled $55,300. Students from 12 of the 15 year-round, unbridged islands received awards, which are renewable for up to four years of post-secondary education. Of these students, eight island students received special named awards:

The Island Institute will host a free lecture series this summer that will feature authors, artists, and experts sharing insights into life on the Maine coast, as well as their perspectives and reflections on the challenges of making it here.
Lectures begin Wednesday, July 5, and will be held every Wednesday through August 9, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Events will take place in the fourth floor conference room at the Island Institute, 386 Main Street in Rockland, and are free and open to the public.

Bowdoin College’s Eileen Johnson will be collaborating with the Rockland-based Island Institute to help Maine’s 120 coastal and island communities cope with battering storm surges and rising sea levels.
This effort to mitigate climate-induced disasters is being funded by a $240,000 grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. This grant, awarded to the Island Institute, is part of a $3.2 million pot recently given to almost a dozen coastal organizations, from Alaska to Florida and Maine, to help seaside towns build resilience to coastal flooding and climate change.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has reintroduced a bill that would require federal officials to work with coastal communities in Maine and around the country to address the impacts of ocean acidification. The bill, H.R. 2719, has bipartisan support in Congress.

“Climate change and warming temperatures aren’t the only effects of carbon emissions that we have to worry about. Ocean acidification is already having an impact on valuable Maine fisheries,” Pingree said. “It’s time we start paying more attention and getting the information we need to understand the potential impacts on our coastal communities.”