Benefits to Maine

We expect that Maine's Sustainability Solutions Initiative will benefit Maine by:

1. facilitating collaborative interdisciplinary research to understand how social, economic, and ecological systems respond to changing demographic, market, biophysical, and political conditions;
2. generating and sharing information among researchers, stakeholders, and decision-makers aimed at developing public policies that sustain economic opportunity in concert with preservation of environmental quality;
3. exploring innovative ways of promoting communication between stakeholders and researchers and delivering educational tools to students and teachers engaged in analysis of sustainability issues in the classroom; and
4. establishing vital state-wide networks among government agencies, NGOs and the private sector focused on improved management of natural resources and the development of key technology clusters in the Maine economy

...Maine is presently leading the way on many new environmental initiatives especially in areas such as climate change, urban stream rehabilitation and management, watershed scale management as it affects Atlantic salmon and other critical habitat management issues. Each of these topics requires innovation involving science and technology as well as development of capacity for information transfer, social and economic science, communication, political science and public policy development.

David Littell
Commissioner, Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection

Rockport Harbor, Maine