Mainers from every corner of the state are stepping up to the climate challenge. Practical, creative and trailblazing teachers, bus drivers, students, communities, recent graduates and professional athletes alike are taking action to get ahead of the climate curve. Read their stories.
Maine is nationally known for its leadership in the aquaculture industry, with local businesses growing fast to meet the rising demand for farmed kelp and shellfish. However, many small farms can only scale up so quickly without reliable labor, and bottlenecks in workforce development have stunted the number of qualified workers in the field.
By the time Randy Martin came back home from teaching at Gambia College in the West African country of The Gambia to purchase his family’s potato farm near Presque Isle in Aroostook County in 1983, he’d learned a few things about preserving soil and the importance of healthy farming practices.
“No potato production here anymore, much to my father’s dismay,” Martin said. “When I came home from Africa my father thought I’d be farming potatoes. Instead, I started planting trees on the potato fields. He thought I was totally out of my mind.”
Q: What are climate-friendly forest practices?
A: They’re forestry practices that can increase the resilience of forests to climate change, store more carbon, and increase the rate of carbon sequestration. Often they are traditional forestry practices modified to achieve goals for forest carbon and forest resilience.
They include:
• Vegetative/silvicultural practices, such as thinning forest stands, retaining certain species, large trees, and deadwood, planting, or controlling invasive plants;
A Mainer with an entrepreneurial spirit, Cole Ellis, 19, of Searsport, seized the opportunity to forge a green career path for himself at an early age — and he’s not done yet.
“Maine is important to me because I grew up seeing how beautiful the state can be,” he said. “And heat pumps are the most efficient heating source.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated in 2010 that between 30-40 percent of the food supply is wasted each year. To put a dent in food waste that enters landfills regionally, Agri-Cycle, a Maine-based food waste collection service, has been turning it into a valuable resource since 2012, creating clean energy and healthy soil through an anaerobic digestion processor.