The Wrack

WELLS, Maine, December 8, 2014  Scientists from around New England met at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve on December 5 for a workshop focused on blue carbon science and policy. For the first time, scientists from throughout the region gathered to share research results, identify gaps in knowledge, and plan future collaborations involving carbon in coastal habitats.

The term blue carbon refers to the ability of salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests to take up and store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Coastal wetlands capture carbon and store it at rates even greater than rainforests.

Carbon held naturally in coastal wetlands is not entering the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, so these habitats have real potential to mitigate climate change, said Dr. Kristin Wilson, Wells Reserve research director, who co-coordinated the workshop.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 12/7/2014.

My family likes to takes walks, particularly in the fall and winter. Given the calories were consuming lately, and the long nights given over to reading and TV, were trying to grab every opportunity we can to stretch our legs and lungs outside.

While golf may be a great way to spoil a long walk, as the saying goes, fortunately theres nothing like the scientific method to enhance a little wander through the woods. Proposing, testing, and analyzing hypotheses prevents hypothermia by keeping the brain warm, I tell my wife and kids. They roll their eyes& but then we find something to examine.

Some 1,200 students participated in 49 field trip programs during spring and fall this year. Thank you, docents and teachers!

It sounds cool: Blue carbon. Have you heard of it? What does it make you think?

Frankly, I don't understand why giving comes *after* shopping. As if the other 364 days of the year, I should be... not giving?

The Wells Reserve at Laudholm is a timeless place, but these are changing times.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco?Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 11/23/2014.

The most important thing I can say about this years midterm election is simply: thank you for voting.

Maine had the highest voter turnout in the entire 50 states, with 59.3% of us going to the polls, well above the national average of 36%. If it was the gu-bear-natorial nature of our election, so be it: each vote tallied was an expression of individual preference. Some races were decided by single digits; others, by lopsided majorities. In each race, and on each ballot question, we now know what a majority of our fellow Mainers decisively think. Thats valuable information and worth thinking about.

Volunteers measure river conditions at 20 monitoring sites as part of a statewide program.

In 1989, after a few years away, my wife and I moved back to Maine. Just a few months earlier, the Maine Supreme Court had handed down its Moody Beach decision, confining public use of privately owned beach property to the colonial eras permitted uses of fishing, fowling and navigation. As someone with a profound love for the Maine coast, I read the courts decision with great personal and professional interest.

For most of my career, I have worked to conserve special places in Maine  to protect natural resources and to provide the public with access to the coast. Realizing that 2014 would mark 25 years since Moody, I organized a public lecture series so people could better understand and appreciate the legal issues surrounding public access and private ownership of coastal lands.

This summer and fall the Reserve hosted four evenings that involved all the key players from Moody and subsequent court cases dealing with coastal access in Maine. Each time, we filled the auditorium to capacity.

It was a great experience for all of us. Together we learned that Maine is not an anomaly; other states have access conflicts and must also contend with legal ambiguities over shoreline use and ownership.