Acadia Partners Blog

Yesterday, after we finished our morning walk, Molly the dog and I encountered two young moose. They were surprised to see us and made for the woods. I tend to think of moose as big and ungainly, but their movement, though quick, was graceful as they ran across an open area into the forest. Their disappearance was sudden and complete once they were in the woods. Gone.

Molly has seen moose before, and she is obviously impressed with them. Her response has been the same each time. She moves from standing to sitting and then watches, looking at the spot where the moose were last visible before disappearing.

I am impressed too. There is something thrilling about seeing a big animal in the Park. Part of the thrill, to be sure, is that such sightings are uncommon.. But the thrill reaches deeper than that, to something more basic in my own animal makeup. My guess would be that seeing big animals sharpens my sense that the Park still has some wildness left.

In March Acadia National Park brought together more than 50 scientists in a series of workshops with the goal of identifying important Park research questions. When the scientists were asked what the Park should be doing now in anticipation of future changes and impacts, there was broad consensus that Acadia was likely to be changed in important ways by global warming.

I live in a one species town (it’s a one horse town too, but that’s a different story). The species is lobster and it is estimated to account for about half of all income earned in Winter Harbor and the surrounding community … but it wasn’t always this way

Acadia Partner’s mission, when rendered down to its core, might be as simple as “Protect the Park.” But I often find it difficult to reduce our mission to a single, pithy phrase. In part this is because the scientific, resource management, and socio-economic issues related to our mission are dynamic, diverse and complex […]

This is the last of a series of three short writings that talk about Acadia Partners’ mission. The first piece focused on the place where Acadia Partners is located, since Acadia Partners’ mission is rooted in the importance of place. The second installment looked at the question of who we have to thank for preserving this place and keeping it available to the public. This final segment looks at Acadia Partners’ role in continuing the work, started over 100 years ago, to protect this place for future generations.

In late October SERC was privileged to host a meeting of researchers associated with the Downeast Initiative. You can read the article describing that meeting by clicking here. I attended the meeting and came away impressed. What the Downeast Initiative is attempting to do is critically important.

This importance extends beyond fishing. Fisheries are among this region’s most significant natural resources, viewed from an economic standpoint. I cannot conceive of a way in which we could have an effective Downeast natural resource conservation ethic if we do not have a fisheries conservation ethic.

John Muir wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” That is the thinking behind ecosystem-based fisheries management — an approach to fisheries management that we treat as something new — as something that we need to figure out how to do.

Seventy years ago the Dust Bowl brought about the first major effort to create ecosystem-based management. It was an effort that involved government programs, education, management and monitoring, and various economic incentives.

What did we learn from that? What worked? What are the outcomes seventy years down the road? What came as a surprise? And what can we apply from all this learning to our current need to bring an ecosystem approach to managing fisheries?