The Islesboro Forum

Dr. Alexa Dayton and Robin Alden from Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, with McArthur Genius Award recipient Ted Ames discuss potential impacts on the Gulf of Maine from proposed changes to Federal funding and science and management processes at NOAA, and Maine’s Department of Marine Resources
2025-07-27 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Islesboro Community Center, 103 Pendleton Point Road, Islesboro, ME, United States
Join Dr. Alexa Dayton, Executive Director of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (MCCF), Robin Alden, former Executive Director and Founder of MCCF, and Ted Ames, former groundfisherman and McArthur Genius Award recipient, on Sunday July 27, 2025, for a lively discussion of the potential impacts on Gulf of Maine fisheries resulting from proposed changes to Federal funding and science and management processes at NOAA, and Maine’s Department of Marine Resources.

We will explore the historical context of the decline of groundfish and how Maine got to a largely lobster dominated Maine fishery over a 40-year period, which has created perilous dependence upon a single species fishery that supports 4,500 individual businesses and generates more than $1 billion in economic return to the State of Maine. We will examine the opportunities and risks associated with a future Federal regulatory and funding landscape that must reply upon a data poor scientific process and de-regulated management, and discuss how this might help or hinder objectives to restore a more diversified, healthy, thriving marine economy that can sustain the test of time.
Dr. Dayton’s work has been focused on the complex interplay of species conservation balanced with economic returns for natural resource such as fisheries, which plays out in the allocation of harvest privileges through co-management and trade-off decisions at the community scale. Alexa also serves as President Ex-Officio of Fishing into the Future, a U.K. based charity that was catalyzed by King Charles’s charitable foundation to build co-management of UK fisheries. Before joining MCCF, Alexa held senior positions at Gulf of Maine Research Institute, University Maine, L.L. Bean and Maine Huts and Trails.

Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, Kate Coug and Rose Lundy "Local journalism that matters: how The Maine Monitor is keeping Mainers informed and meeting the moment"
2025-08-03 08:00 - 17:00 | Islesboro Community Center, 103 Pendleton Point Road, Islesboro, ME, United States
“Local journalism that matters: how The Maine Monitor is keeping Mainers informed and meeting the moment”
Learn how The Maine Monitor is helping readers make sense of developments – state and federal – that impact their lives.
Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm is the Executive Director of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, which publishes The Maine Monitor. Micaela joined MCPIR after retiring as a Senior Foreign Service officer. She represented the United States around the world for 26 years, leading U.S. diplomatic teams, and advancing U.S. principles of democratic governance, most importantly, the importance of a free and vibrant press. Micaela is on the board of the Maine Press Association and the board of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition. She lives in Belfast with her family.
Kate Cough is the editor of The Maine Monitor, previously serving as environmental reporter and enterprise editor for the newsroom. As an eighth generation Mainer, Kate believes her responsibility as editor is deeply personal — shaping and implementing The Monitor’s coverage of the issues that matter to people, the place she calls home and where she is raising her family, is about serving her community and our future Maine. She lives in Bar Harbor. She has received recognition from the National Headliner Awards, Maine Press Association and National Newspaper Association, among others.Rose Lundy is a senior public health reporter for The Maine Monitor, with a focus on Maine’s aging care system. She is passionate about stories that highlight systemic problems affecting the most vulnerable in our community. Rose was previously a 2022 ProPublica Local Reporting Network fellow and a 2020 Report for America corps member. Before that, she was a reporter for three years at a daily newspaper in southwest Washington state. She now lives in Portland, Maine. Her work has been recognized by the New England Newspaper & Press Association, Maine Public Health Association, National Newspaper Association Foundation, Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers and Maine Press Association.

Dr. Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania "Science Under Siege"
2025-08-10 17:30 - 18:30 | Islesboro Community Center, 103 Pendleton Point Road, Islesboro, ME, United States
“Science Under Siege”
Dr. Michael E. Mann is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mann is also a recipient of the “Tyler Prize” which is sometimes called the Nobel Prize for the Environment.

From pandemics to the climate crisis, humanity faces tougher challenges than ever. Whether it’s the health of our people or the health of our planet, we know we are on an unsustainable path. But our efforts to effectively tackle these existential crises are now hampered by a common threat: politically and ideologically motivated opposition to science. I discuss my collaboration with public health scientist Peter Hotez examining the five forces behind the modern-day anti-science movement, informed by our decades of experience on the front lines of the battle to convey accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information about science in the face of determined and nihilistic opposition. I reveal the five main forces threatening science: plutocrats, pros, petrostates, phonies, and the press. It is a call to arms and a road map for dismantling the forces of anti-science, empowering ourselves to promote scientific truths, and shining light on channels of dark money, dismantle the corporations poisoning the planet, and ultimately avert disaster.
*Release Date: September 9, 2025

Kate Zernike, Author and Reporter for the New York Times "The Exceptions: The Fight for Women in Science"
2025-08-17 17:30 - 18:30 | ME
Photo: Harry Zernike
“The Exceptions: The Fight for Women in Science”
Kate Zernike has been a reporter for The New York Times since 2000. She began as an education reporter and has worked in a wide range of positions across the newsroom, including on the investigations desk, in the Washington Bureau, as a campaign reporter and a health care reporter. She was most recently the Times’ lead reporter covering the abortion debate leading up to and after the repeal of Roe v. Wade. She was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for stories about al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 terror attacks. She was previously a reporter for The Boston Globe, where she broke the story of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s admission that it had discriminated against women on its faculty, on which The Exceptions is based.

Nancy Hopkins, a protege of the legendary scientist James Watson, entered science in the 1960s believing it was a meritocracy for women who worked hard enough. Thirty years later, she led a group of accomplished female scientists who prompted MIT to admit it had discriminated against them. The story of these trailblazing women, and how it resonates today, in science and beyond.
