This month, we are joined by Jill Harlow of the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association, who will discuss the “Fishermen Feeding Mainers” initiative and its dynamic impact on food resilience. To learn more about the initiative, check out the MCFA website.

This event is open to the public!

Jill Harlow

Jill Harlow serves as the Maine Coast Fishermen's Association's Director of Strategic Initiatives. She is an accomplished strategist, writer, and organizational leader with more than twenty-five years of nonprofit experience. She spent eighteen years helping to build the Gulf of Maine Research Institute as a member of the advancement and strategy teams. Immediately prior to joining MCFA, she served as Chief of Staff for Pecan Street, an Austin, TX-based R&D nonprofit that works to support an equitable clean energy transition and create data-driven opportunities in regenerative agriculture. Jill is a Colby graduate and an alumnus of the Williams Mystic Maritime Studies Program and the Salt Center for Documentary Field Studies. She is a Leadership Maine graduate and has a certificate of executive leadership from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendosa College of Business.

Meeting Details

Monday, November 18th, 2024

7:00-8:00pm EST

The Abbott Room at the Belfast Public Library

-OR-

Click here to join the Zoom!

We invite you to gather with us at this year's Annual Meeting, held from 3 to 5pm in the Abbott Room at the Belfast Free Library and on Zoom.

Come together with fellow members as we reflect on the year, celebrate achievements, and look ahead to the future.

Expect poetry, thoughtful updates, and open discussions with opportunities for members to engage and share their ideas.

We hope to see you there!

Access on Zoom here.

Join us for a community meeting and panel discussion organized by members of the Waldo County Climate Action Coalition centered around our community’s watershed. This event will focus on water stewardship as a critical component of broader climate action efforts. We aim to increase understanding of the local watershed, spark discourse on sustainable ways forward, and encourage collective action through local initiatives.

Featured Speakers:

• Joy Bowles, Belfast Bay Watershed Coalition Vice President, Watershed Quality Chair
  As the lead in Water Quality, Joy brings her expertise on water monitoring practices and how to protect and improve the health of the Belfast Bay Watershed.

• Jill Howell, Upstream Watch and Penobscot Bay Waterkeeper
  The Executive Director of Upstream Watch, which also functions as the Penobscot Bay Waterkeeper, Jill advocates for the health of our local rivers, enforcement of environmental regulations, and public education.

• John Krueger, Friends of Harriet L. Hartley Board Member
  John shares his long history of environmental health and advocacy, including as Director of the Maine State Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory. He has particular expertise and interest in the nitrogen levels and plastic pollution in the Belfast Bay Watershed.

This meeting is an excellent opportunity for community members to learn about the intersection of water quality and climate action in Waldo County. Participate in a dialogue about practical actions we can take to protect our water resources and amplify our collective impact on climate change.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Register on Zoom!

This month, we are joined by HLH's own Karin Spitfire, who will offer up a sure-to-be-moving poetry reading. Spitfire is a poet and activist conceptual artist who uses whatever medium necessary to get across the message, song, dance, poetry, rant, diatribe, prints, artist books, and letterpress. Spitfire is the author of two poetry collections, Standing with Trees (2006), and The Body in Late Stage Capitalism (2021).

From touring a performance piece called “Incest: It’s All Relative” nationally in the 80’s; to a community engagement event “The Sardine Extravaganza: For the Love of Herring” in 2010; to her current work in progress of moving sculptural books “Seven Sacred Sites/Sights,” Spitfire’s work calls us out and in. Spitfire also makes pysanky, Ukrainian egg dying, as a spiritual practice evoking on her matrilineal roots.

Hybrid Meeting Details

Monday, July 15th, 2024

7:30-8:30pm EST

The Sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast

37 Miller St, Belfast, ME 04915

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Click here to join on Zoom!

Meeting ID: 875 2103 4152 

This month, we are joined by Genevieve Black of Belfast Area High School to discuss the future of Maine's Working Waterfront and the role aquaculture education plays. As a lobsterman's daughter and a key player in the high school's Marine Institute, Genevieve knows firsthand the value of hands-on marine experience and cross-disciplinary education. To learn more about the Marine Institute, check out this article.

This event is open to the public!

Genevieve Black

Genevieve Black is a High School Science educator at Belfast Area High School. She has a BS of Marine Biology from Maine Maritime Academy, a MS in Sustainable Natural Resource Management from Unity College, and is currently working on a Masters in Educational Leadership through UMaine Farmington. She is passionate about the organisms and fisheries in the Gulf of Maine, having grown up working with her father lobster fishing on Penobscot Bay.

Meeting Details

Monday, June 17th, 2024

7:30-8:30pm EST via Zoom

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If prompted, passcode: 702325

Join us for May’s Member Meeting to learn more about groundwater and the emerging threats in pursuing economic solutions to the climate crisis in Maine. This engaging talk will explore the complexities and challenges faced as we strive for sustainability and economic health in Maine.

This event is open to the public — invite your friends!

Nickie Sekera

Nickie Sekera is the co-founder of Community Water Justice, a decentralized network of people working for strong water protections at the community level across Wabanakiyik (Maine). She is a founding board member of the Saco Headwaters Alliance, Fryeburg Water District Trustee, and in 2022 was appointed by the Speaker of the House to the Commission To Study The Role of Water As A Resource In Maine. She is also a journalist with Sunlight Media Collective, a collective of Indigenous and non-indigenous journalists, media makers and activists, centering the stories and experiences of Wabanaki people. Nickie also has experience as an administrator of a wilderness medicine school and extensive human rights and environmental justice advocacy for Burma. Most invaluably, Nickie is a mother of a son that joins her in this work.

Meeting Details

Monday, May 20, 2024

7:30-8:30pm EST via Zoom

Click here to join

Passcode: 389257

Are you interested in learning more about the conservation of Belfast Bay, sustainable aquaculture in Maine and our plans for the future?

Lately we've been hearing things like... Isn't the Nordic fight a done deal? Aren't you wrapping up? We’re here to tell you, we’re just getting started! There's so much more to come. Join us as we share what's coming next.

Nancy E. Smith, Executive Director GrowSmartMaine

Nancy E. Smith has lived and worked in Maine since 1981 and joined GrowSmartMaine in April 2010. She maintains the fiscal health of the organization while overseeing programming at the local level, and leading advocacy for smart growth outcomes at the state, local, and federal levels.

Nancy is a former Maine State Representative, farmer, and forester.

We hope you will join us to hear about her work.

GrowSmartMaine advocates for policies and projects that advance Maine’s business and economic growth and development in balance with the conservation and enrichment of our greatest assets; the beautiful and productive built and natural environments that are the bedrock of our cultural and economic heritage. 

For more information

visit their website

Carter Newell: Science Driven Practices for Safe, Sustainable Seafood

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As founder of Pemaquid Mussel Farms, Carter Newell has put his Ph.D. in marine biology to work for more than four decades. His study of mussel biology and coastal marine ecosystems has made him one of today’s leading shellfish aquaculture scientists.

Carter Newell and his company represent the ecologically responsible business model that Friends of Harriet L Hartley Conservation Area endorses.

Join us to hear his story.

Click here to visit the website at Pemaquid Mussel Farms

Carter Newell has been farming shellfish since 1982, founded Pemaquid Mussel Farms and Pemaquid Oyster Company, and has a M.S. in Oceanography and a Ph.D. in Marine Biology. In addition to being the captain of the mussel barge Mumbles and the Oyster Girl 2, he is active studying estuaries, modeling bivalve growth, developing aquaculture GIS systems, scuba diving, and playing the fiddle.

Meeting Details

Monday, February 13, 2023

6:00-7:00pm EST via Zoom

Please share this invitation with your friends!

Jonathan Fulford, Adventures at Sea

The story of his recent sailing trip to Newfoundland and Labrador

A long time environmental activist and experienced sailor, Jonathan made this trip in part to observe the effects of climate change on sea levels, marine life, and the communities that depend on the ocean for their livelihood.

Most of us will never have the chance to see this beautiful and far-away land.

Join us for an opportunity to experience it through his eyes!

Bonita Johnson: Maine Oyster Farmer

In our continuing series highlighting local aquaculture farmers, this month's guest speaker Bonita Johnson will share her story of growing oysters in Maine.

FHLH supports small-scale aquaculture as a viable way to harvest the ocean's bounty. Farms like Bonita's contribute to the local economy and our local food movement. We look forward to hearing about her work and hope you will join us.

Meeting Details

Monday, November 14, 2022

6:00-7:00pm EST via Zoom

Please share this invitation with your friends!

Sarah is a "dedicated seaweed farmer, tending the wild ocean garden and inspiring others about all things Maine seaweed. Her company, Springtide Seaweed, is the largest organic seaweed farm in North America. Sarah has been a leader is seaweed aquaculture since 2010 through the development of new nurseries and educational programs, crops and products, sea farmer training programs, the first organic certification programs for seaweed crops, and through major facilitation of the industry."

Her work has been groundbreaking. But it is far from done...as small scale, sustainable ocean farming in Maine...and around the world...is confronting a considerable challenge from large industrial aquaculture efforts.

We hope that you will join us for an informative and interesting discussion.

More about our Restorative Aquaculture: A Positive Alternative series:

Friends of The Harriet L Hartley Conservation Area supports local, restorative aquaculture farming. We believe there are viable and positive alternatives to industrial scale fish factories.

In the next few months, we will hear from experts and Maine farmers who are actively involved in aquaculture projects that renew and rejuvenate the Gulf of Maine, provide many local jobs, and contribute to our vibrant local food movement.

Steve Miller, Isleboro Island Trust, to speak on the industrial development of Sears Island

We are honored to have Steve as our speaker for June's meeting, and look forward to learning about the Island Trust's concerns regarding the current attempt to develop a major manufacturing, assembling and launching facility on Sears Island, even though MDOT consultants say it can be built at Mack Point.

Steve Miller is one of Islesboro Islands Trust’s (IIT) founders. In 1985 he became Executive Director of the land trust, where he continues to provide leadership in IIT conservation, environmental education, and advocacy, leavened on occasion with comic relief. Long involved in issues that affect Penobscot Bay, Steve served on the executive committees of the Penobscot Bay Alliance and Pen Bay Network, and as the coordinator of the Penobscot Watershed Coalition. He is a life-long resident of Maine and acknowledged curmudgeon. When not engaged in IIT work, he fashions walking sticks and "The Islesboro Bench" as Greyfeather Woodcraft, captures scenic Islesboro photographs, and explores the island’s beaches and woodlands.

Listen to the audio from the meeting

Meet the ELI team

John Pendergrass, Vice-President, leads the Research and Policy Division, which conducts legal and policy research and analyses of pressing environmental and natural resource issues in the U.S. and globally. He also leads the Institute's Educational Program and the Institute's Publications Division.

Before becoming Vice President, he was a Senior Attorney, Director of the Judicial Education, State Center, and Climate and Energy Programs, and Co-Director of International Programs at ELI.

Cynthia R. Harris is the director of Tribal Programs and the deputy director of the Center for State, Tribal, and Local Environmental Programs at ELI. Her projects focus on Indigenous issues, climate change adaptation, water quality and conservation, product life-cycle management, and green infrastructure. She presently coordinates ELI’s project team administering the Local Government Environmental Assistance Network an EPA Compliance Assistance Center.

Elissa Torres-Soto is a Staff Attorney at ELI. Her work currently focuses on international projects, particularly on the Inter-American region. She works on a variety of issues at ELI, ranging from the mitigation of environmental, social, and economic impacts of gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon to domestic environmental and natural resources law and policy topics.

Listen to an audio recording of the meeting

We are very pleased to welcome Lincoln Millstein as this month's guest speaker. Lincoln is a retired media executive, long-time journalist, and dedicated pamphleteer. He lives in Somesville on Mount Desert Island and writes an on-line newsletter, The Quietside Journal.

Lincoln is extremely well-informed on the surge of outside interest in commercial-scale aquaculture ventures in Maine. His recent posts examine and critique the American Aqua net-pen proposal for Frenchman Bay, the Nordic plan for a land-based salmon-raising factory in Belfast, and the Office of the Public Advocate report which recommended that the Public Utility Commission turn down CMP's request to upgrade its grid until the legal challenges to Nordic's project are resolved.

Click here to read The Quietside Journal.

News from Humboldt County: Nordic Aquafarms West Coast Project

Hank Sims is a reporter who has worked in Humboldt County, California for the last 20 years. He is the editor of the Lost Coast Outpost, a locally-owned news website serving the California's North Coast. Nordic Aquafarms, Inc. chose the "brown field" site left by a departing paper mill as the site for their second, land-based salmon-raising plant. Hank has followed the evolution of Nordic's arrival in Humboldt County from the beginning. He looks forward to discussing the similarities and differences between the East and West Coast sites, the communities affected, and the environmental factors at play.