Talk of the Towns

Producer/host: Ron Beard

Topic: Constructing Town Land Use Ordinances that Work

Guests: Tom Martin, Executive Director, Hancock County (Maine) Planning Commission; Noel Musson, CES Inc.; Dale Sprinkle, Chair, Planning Board, Surry, Maine

How does a town exercise its authority to guide land use decisions in Maine?  What is the legislative basis for towns to “plan”?  What is a land use ordinance and how does it affect the ways in which landowners use their land?

Call in show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Topic:  Making Meetings and Groups More Effective

Guests: Craig Freshley, Good Group Decisions, Brunswick, Maine; Deb Burwell, Organizational Consultant, Belfast, Maine

Call in show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant

Topic: Maine’s fisheries

Guests: Robin Alden, director, Penobscot East Resource Center, Stonington ( former commissioner, Dept Marine Resources; Aaron Dority, project director, Downeast Fisheries Initiative, Ted Hoskins, Chaplain, Maine Sea Coast Mission

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Topic: Healthy Boating and Healthy Beaches

Why are we concerned? What are the human health aspects of swim beaches? What sorts of contaminants are common and how/where do they originate?

Guests: Esperanza Stancioff, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Sea Grant Coordinator, Maine Healthy Beaches Program; Pamela Parker, Maine Department of Environmental Protection; Jane Disney, Mount Desert Island Water Quality Coalition; Bill Gawley, Water Quality Specialist, Acadia National Park

Call in show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Topic: Intersections of Science and Place on the Lower Penobscot Watershed

Guests: David Hart, Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research, University of Maine; Gayle B. Zydlewski, President, Cove Brook Watershed; Aram Calhoun, Professor of Wetland Ecology, University of Maine; Greg Burr, Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

What are some of the natural and human communities that share the ecosystem? Why is “place” important? Why are you focusing your efforts on this place?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Topic: Service Learning and Global Citizenship—Maine to Ecuador

Guests:  Susan Vafiades-Diaz (New Teacher Leader, and coordinator of  Ecuador Field Studies Program, Mount Desert Island High School, Students, Fran Rudoff, KIDS Consortium

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Producer/host: Ron Beard

Topic: The connection between our food choices and the impacts of industrial agriculture on the rural people of places like Belize, Panama and Nicaragua.   We learn about a program based in Down east Maine that uses grass-roots extension work to turn that picture around: Sustainable Harvest International

Guests: former Peace Corps member Florence Reed, founder and Ron Poitras, a board member of Sustainable Harvest International, based in Surry.   FMI: www.sustainableharvest.org

Call in show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download