Talk of the Towns 9/14/22: A Conversation with Esperanza Stancioff

Producer/Host: Ron Beard
Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording.

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:

We profile Esperanza Stancioff, Emeritus Professor, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant, about her work to expand community science in aid of better policies and practices for water quality and adaptation to climate change.

What were some of the key elements in your career with University of Maine?
Where did you develop your love of the sea?
Describe the intersecting space between the science developed in the academy, those charged with protecting the environment, and citizens, who might appreciate the benefits of our ecosystem in their personal lives or in pursuing their livelihoods.
How did you discover the importance of engaging citizens to to contribute to scientific knowledge.
What did you learn from bringing together citizens, scientists, historians, policy makers and people making their living on the water to celebrate Penobscot Bay as a place, and to identify the gaps in our knowledge that might help us better protect and manage our shared ecological resources.
More recently, you have worked with citizens and networks of people to respond to growing threats of climate change. Talk about what motivated you to take up this work and some of the
results.

Guest/s:
Esperanza Stancioff, Emeritus Professor, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant

About the host:
Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.