COMMUNITY, CULTURE, & CONSERVATION:
Sustaining Livelihoods and Landscapes
 April 7-9, 2016
Colby College, Waterville, Maine

THURSDAY APRIL 7

2:00-5:30 Registration (The Colby College Museum of Art)

7:30-8:30 Keynote Event

In the Hottest Year, the Hottest Fight
Bill McKibben, Writer and Founder, 350.org (Lorimer Chapel)

FRIDAY APRIL 8

PLENARY

7:00-8:30 am Registration and buffet breakfast (Diamond Building Atrium)

8:30-8:50 am Welcoming Remarks and Opening (Ostrove)

• David Greene, President Colby College
• Barry Dana, Former Chief of the Penobscot Nation

8:50 am Plenary Presentation—Terry Tempest Williams, Writer (Ostrove)
The Hour of Land:  A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks
A look at how our public lands, particularly our national parks, are an evolving idea, a breathing space for our souls.

Respondents:

• Peter Harris, Zacamy Professor of English, Colby College
• Kurt Nelson, Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Colby College

10:00 am Poster Session I and Break (Diamond Atrium)

10:30 am Community Culture and Conservation: Valuing the Land (Plenary Panel, Ostrove)

• Ole Amundsen, Executive Director, Maine Audubon
• Sherry Huber, Executive Director, Maine Timber Research and Environmental Education (TREE) Foundation
• Hannah Blunt, Assistant Curator, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
  
• Barry Dana, Penobscot Nation

11:30 am Buffet Lunch, Page Commons

12:30 pm Distinguished Guest Speaker—Kevin Schneider, Superintendent, Acadia National Park “A Centennial of Protecting Maine’s Only National Park and What’s Next”

1:15 Move to Diamond Building

1:30 pm BREAKOUT SESSIONS

Breakout Session I: Perspectives of Maine Conservationists (Diamond, Room 122)

• Lisa Pohlmann, Executive Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine
• Alec Giffen, Maine Representative & Senior Advisor, New England Forestry Foundation
• Wolfe Tone, Maine State Director, Trust for Public Land
• David MacDonald, Executive Director, Friends of  Acadia

Breakout Session II: Lessons from New England: Linking Forests, People and Conservation, (Diamond, Room 153)

• Bradford Gentry, Director, Research Program on Private Investment and Environment, Yale
• William Labich, Director, Senior Conservationist, Highstead
• Walter Graff, Senior VP, Appalachian Mountain Club
• Mike Wilson, Senior Program Director, Northern Forest Center

Breakout Session III: Outdoor Recreation – A lens for experiencing culture, conservation and community (Diamond, Room 141)

• Tom Armstrong, Chief Merchandising Officer, LL Bean
• Andy Shepard, President, Maine Winter Sports Center
• Nick Callanan, Festival Director, Maine Outdoor Film Festival, No Umbrella Media LLC
• Rob Snyder, PhD. President, Island Institute

Breakout Session IV Photography, Activism, and the Environment (Museum Lower Jetté Gallery)

• Susannah Sayler, Assistant Professor of Art, Photography, and Transmedia, Syracuse University, and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Canary Project
• Gary Green, Associate Professor of Art, Colby College

3:00pm  Poster Session II and Break (Diamond Atrium)

3:30pm The Spring 2016 William R. and Linda K. Cotter Debate,  (Ostrove)

Expansion of the National Park System?  New Ideas for an Old Debate

• Lucas St. Clair, Board Member, Quimby Family Foundation
• Pete Geddes, Managing Director, American Prairie Reserve
  
• Linda J. Bilmes, Harvard & US National Park System Advisory Board
• Terry Anderson, Property and Environment Research Center
  

5:00pm Break

5:30-7:00pm Reception and Dinner with entertainment from North Woods Music: Velocipede, (Parker-Reed, Schair-Swenson-Watson Alumni Center)

7:30pm Post-Dinner Theater—In the Garden of Live Flowers: A Fantasia on the Life and Work of Rachel Carson, a performance of the prize-winning play by Lynne Conner and Attilio Favorini (Runnels Theater)

SATURDAY APRIL 9

7:30-8:30am Registration and Breakfast (Diamond Building Atrium)

8:30am Plenary Panel—Community, Culture, and Conservation: Using the Land (Ostrove)

• Alan Hutchinson, Director, Forest Society of Maine 
• Dana Doran, Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of Maine
• Jen Brophy, Maine Sporting Camp Association and owner, Red River Camps
• Matt Polstein, Founder, New England Outdoor Center

10:00am Poster Session III and Break (Diamond Atrium)

10:15am BREAKOUT SESSIONS

Breakout Session V Land Protection and Stewardship in the Acadian Region: A Remarkable Past and Hopeful Future for Downeast Maine (Diamond, Room 153)

• Mark Berry, President and CEO of the Schoodic Institute, past President, Downeast Lakes Land Trust
• Aaron Dority, Executive Director and CEO, Frenchman Bay Conservancy
• Bob DeForrest, Project Manager, Maine Coast Heritage Trust
• Ben Emory, Conservationist
• Isabella Gambill, Research Associate, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Breakout Session VI Community and Conservation through the Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts (Diamond, Room 122)

• Lynne Conner, Playwright, Professor of Theater and Dance, Colby College
  
• Maggie Libby, Artist, Working on project Acadia and Climate Change, Colby College
  
• Adrian Blevins, Poet, Associate Professor of English, Colby College
  

Breakout Session VII Models of Public-Private Sustainability (Diamond, Room 141)

Moderator: Dan Shea, Director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, Professor of Government, Colby College

Panelists:

• Doug Welch, Executive Director, Maine Island Trail Association, “The Maine Island Trail: a model of success in sustaining landscapes and livelihoods”
• Amy Villamagna, Faculty, Plymouth State University, “Ecosystem Service Equity-Who benefits from Public-Private land conservation?”
• Margot Higgins, Faculty, Macalester College, “From copper to conservation: Relative wilds in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve”
• Linda Woods, Coordinator, Sustain Mid Maine Coalition

Breakout Session VIII Understanding Environmental Communities (Diamond, Room 145)

Moderator: Alice Elliott, Associate Director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, Colby College

Panelists:

• Jay Friedlander, Faculty, College of the Atlantic, “From Sustainability to Abundance”
• Anna Demeo, Faculty, College of the Atlantic, “Building Sustainable  Communities: an international collaboration between communities and academia”
• Tora Johnson, Jessica Leahy, John Daigle, Laura Lindenfield, Lois-Ann Kuntz, James Wilson, Faculty, University of Maine at Machias, “Listening to rural voices to identify pathways to climate change adaptation”
• Ruth Kermish-Allen, Executive Director, Antioch University New England, Maine Math and Science Alliance,”Designing Collaborative Online Communities to Address Environmental Questions and Enable Local Conservation Action”

Breakout Session IX Our Place in Nature (Diamond, Room 153)

Moderator: Lia Morris, Program Coordinator, Environmental Studies

Panelists:

• Dr. John Harris, Dr. Douglas Challenger, Dr. Gerald Burns, Dr. Melinda Jette, Dr. Verna DeLauer, Morgan Baker (Student), Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture – Franklin Pierce University, “Documentary – “From Hurricane to Climate Change”
• Dr. John Harris, Projects Coordinator, Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place, and Culture – Franklin Pierce University, “Returning North With the Spring: Retracing naturalist Edwin Way Teale’s excursion from Florida to Maine “
• Kate Markham, Andrea Cabrera Roa- Clark University, “Climate Change in the Andes: An Integrated Review of Vulnerabilities, Perspectives, and Resilience as Applied to Conservation”

12:00pm Poster Session IV and Closing Lunch, Diamond Atrium