The Wrack

The second Laudholm 5K Trail Run took place on Sunday morning, September 26. Congratulations and thank you to the 96 runners who took part. Here are the results.

Just a few minutes after we sent out our email newsletter asking readers to RSVP for this weekend's events via Facebook, the social networking site became unavailable. Was it…

This summer, the Wells Reserve and the University of New England sponsored two trips on the Saco River, bringing stakeholders together to talk about research findings from the first year of our collaborative project. Thanks to Tin and Jeremy for piloting the boat and to Michele for providing research findings and posing some hard questions about shoreland zoning. We had a good cross section of stakeholders …

August 31, 1986, was for celebrating the new Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve.

From the Laudholm Trust historical archives (October 10, 1985): Mort gave a report on the computer. It has 10 mga bites of memory and will eventually hold our files on membership, businesses, foundations, gifts, and others. He is currently training Susan Sullivan and setting up the files for memberships. We have just begun and it will be a while before we see the benefits. …

With the crafts festival right around the corner, the time to mow fields for parking is approaching. Unfortunately, some of the parking fields are full of milkweed and monarchs. Fortunately, this is a good time to cut the fields to encourage strong regeneration next year.

Project Goals

• Understand and measure the value of services and benefits provided by waterfront buffer lands and wetlands
• Provide place-based economic information to support decisions that reflect the true consequences of land use, restoration, and conservation practices in southern Maine

Project Summary

Along the coast of southern Maine, the need to conserve natural buffers to protect rivers and wetlands has become a focal point for tensions between development and conservation interests. In this rapidly developing landscape, decision-makers often feel they must choose development over conservation or restoration to support local economies. While there is scientific evidence that underscores the value of protecting natural buffers around sensitive water bodies, local decision-makers need additional, place-based, economic information about the ecosystem services that these lands provide and the range of tradeoffs that are implied in related land use decisions. A team led by the Wells Reserve addressed this need by working with local, state, and federal stakeholders to better understand, measure, and communicate how southern Mainers value natural buffers and the tradeoffs they are willing to make to protect these critical resources for the future.

A Laudholm Farms promotional booklet from about 1920 was reproduced several decades later and is now scanned for sharing online. Enjoy.

Warm sun and a gentle breeze made pleasant the opening reception for George Burk's "Aspects of Change" exhibit in the Eugene Frederick Artway.

In the past couple of weeks, it's been hard not to notice the bright yellow plastic cards that have appeared in clumps of vegetation. Yesterday, I caught up with the guy who has been hanging and collecting them, field research entomologist Phil Stack. He filled me in; they are traps for catching fruit flies.