Coastal Conversations 10/27/17

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: High School students on a fishing boat deploying spat collectors, or mesh bags, into the water column to collect baby scallops. Science teachers and their students hauling line onto a work boat to examine the growth rate on their kelp farm. Locals learning from a seasoned Maine guide to row a traditional dory, emulating how generations of Maine fishermen and sailors have moved around the harbor. The composition of mariners in Belfast Bay may have been changing in the last few decades, but their passion for these waters is no less real. Today, our show features four people who are involved in really cool work connected to our local seas, either as teachers, students, or guides. All four of our guests happen to be women, and each of them bring to their learning and their work a commitment to the protection of this place and its people. Today we hear from the owner of DoryWoman Rowing, as well as a high school student, and two science teachers, who all use the local waters as their classroom, their workspace and their happy place. Guest/s: Nicolle Littrell, founder of DoryWoman Rowing, Open Water Rower, Licensed Maine Guide, Filmmaker and Photographer. Lindsey Schortz, Science instructor and member of the team for the Belfast Marine Institute at Belfast Area High School (BAHS) and a teacher at BCOPE (Belfast Community Outreach Program in Education), an alternative high school program. Genna Black, Science teacher with the Marine Institute at Belfast Area High School Mia Fay, high school senior in the BCOPE program (Belfast Community Outreach Program in Education), Belfast Area High School’s alternative high school program. Other credits: About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

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Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: This episode features two distinct stories about Gouldsboro, Maine: STORY 1: Gouldsboro, a working waterfront community at a crossroads Today’s show features the second episode of this year’s From the Sea Up podcast series focused on Maine’s working waterfront towns. We’ll be headed to Gouldsboro, A historic fishing town with over 50 miles of coastline. In 2020, the Norwegian-backed company American Aquafarms proposed putting two closed-pen salmon farms, totaling 120-acres, in Frenchman Bay between Gouldsboro and Bar Harbor. Although American Aquafarm’s initial application for an aquaculture lease was terminated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources in the spring of 2022, a question about the future of Maine’s waters took hold in many rural coastal communities. In this episode, From the Sea Up producers visit South Gouldsboro, a small and active working waterfront with stunning views of Cadillac Mountain and the proposed lease site. With perspectives from a seaweed farmer and cultivator, Sarah Redmond, as well as Jerry Potter, a longtime lobsterman, and Sebastian Belle from the Maine Aquaculture Association, this episode explores the identity and needs of one working waterfront community, and asks the question: What kind of working waterfront do people want to see here in the future? And what role does aquaculture play in that future? This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine’s complicated future. This is the second in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months. STORY 2: Gouldsboro: a legacy of sardines You heard the narrator in our first story talk about American Aquafarms’ purchase of the Maine Fair Trade lobster processing facility in the Gouldsboro village of Prospect Harbor. While American Aquafarms’ intention is to someday convert the lobster processing operation into a salmon processing facility and hatchery, this plant was in the business of packing sardines for nearly 100 years. As the era of Maine’s sardine industry was coming to an end in the later part of the 20th century, and sardine packing plants were closing one by one up and down the Maine coast, the Stinson’s Sardine Cannery was the very last hold out. It’s final owner, Bumble Bee Foods, shuttered the sardine operation for good in 2010, making it not only the last sardine cannery in Maine, but the very last sardine cannery in the whole of the United States. In 2011, the year after the sardine plant closed, oral historians from “Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc” sought to honor and document the Stinson Sardine Factory legacy by interviewing a number of former employees. In our second story today, we share some clips from two of these interviews with women who worked as sardine packers. Guest/s: STORY 1 Sarah Redmond, Springtide Seaweed Jerry Potter, lobsterman Sebastian Belle, Maine Aquaculture Association STORY 2 We’ll hear a short clip from the interview with Arlene Hartford, followed by a slightly longer clip from the interview with Lela Anderson. Both women were interviewed by Keith Ludden in 2011 and the full collection is available here Other credits: STORY 1 From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Click here to hear past episodes and for more information STORY 2 Thanks to the folks at “Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc” for permission to air these clips. You can access their full collections here. And thanks also to production assistant Camden Hunt, for helping edit the audio clips for this segment of today’s show. If you want to hear more about sardines, check out the Coastal Conversations for our August 28, 2020 episode called “Stories of the Sardine Industry” which features these clips and many more About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

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Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: In honor of the holiday season, our show features “Maine holiday seafood celebrations, past and present.” We are excited to talk with three women from coastal Maine who write about food and history, about Maine and nature, about travel and much more. Our guests will share ideas for seafood recipes to treat your family and friends over the holidays. They will help us explore how the perceptions of seafood in Maine have changed over the decades and centuries, from the Wabanaki to the New England Colonists, from the mid- 1900’s to the present. From their perspectives as cook and authors, our guests will explore modern day issues such as wild fisheries and aquaculture. And most of all, they will get you excited to experiment with seafood in the kitchen this holiday season. -Seafood recipes and cooking tips -New Englander’s changing thoughts about and appreciation for seafood -Three cooks perspectives on fisheries and aquaculture in Maine Guest/s: Sandy Oliver, food historian, food writer and columnist, from Islesboro in Penobscot Bay Marnie Reed Crowell: conservationist, natural history writer, poet and scallop cookbook author from Sunset on Deer Isle Nancy Harmon Jenkins: writer, historian, cook, traveler, and storyteller from Camden About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 12/23/22: Maine Holiday Seafood Celebrations, Past and Present first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: The town of Eastport, Maine, has weathered many changes in the last decades, transitioning from empty sardine factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to an uncertain future. This month we feature two stories from Maine’s easternmost town: “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront,” a recent episode on the From the Sea Up podcast, and “The Drama of Eastport Tides,” an older (2017) but timeless episode from the Salts and Water podcast. Our first is called “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront.” In the far eastern corner of Downeast Maine there’s a 3.7 square mile island. Connected to the mainland by a causeway and road that passes through the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, Sipayik, this island is home to the town of Eastport, population 1,300. Once the most prominent sardine canning village along the coast, Eastport’s last sardine factory closed in 1983. With that, a century-long industry was gone. In this episode we learn how Eastport has transitioned from a waterfront of empty factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to a very uncertain future. This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine’s complicated future. This is the first in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months. People and organizations Featured in this story include: Tides Institute, Hugh French, Moose Island Marine, Dean Pike, Eastport Port Authority, and Chris Gardner. This story is part of the podcast series From the Sea Up A note from producer Galen Koch: Thank you for listening to From the Sea up. This episode was written and produced by me, Galen Koch and assistant producer Olivia Jolley for the Island Institute. Nicole Wolf takes the beautiful photographs that accompany this episode. From the Sea Up’s Senior Editors are Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman. Additional audio editing on this episode by Liz Joyce and Claudia Newall. Special thanks to Camden Hunt, Hugh French, Dean Pike, Chris Bartlett, and Chris Gardner for their help and participation. And thanks to the Salt Institute and Pamela Wood, Hugh French, and Lynn Kippax Jr, who together researched and wrote the 1983 journal publication, “Eastport: For Pride.” Most of the music in this episode is by Cue Shop. From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Past episodes and more information are available here Our second story Is called “The Drama of Eastport Tides” The defining feature of the easternmost point of America is the dramatic tides of the Atlantic Ocean at the coast of Eastport, Maine. Learn why incredible natural feature exists and visit one of the largest confluences of whirlpools in the world. Hear from the Salts—people with deep connections to the sea, whose lives are shaped by this natural wonder. This story was pulled out of the Coastal Conversations archives, from 2017, when well-known New England audio storyteller Rob Rosenthal partnered up with an initiative called Experience Maritime Maine to produce the Salts and Water podcast. Eastport is one of six towns covered in this series. People and organizations featured in this story include: Butch Harris of Eastport Windjammers, harbor pilot Bob Peacock, photographer Lisa Tyson Ennis, some Eastport visitors, and of course, the tide. This story is part of the podcast series SALTS & WATER: Stories from the Maine Coast Experience Maritime Maine presents Salts & Water, a 6-part podcast series by award-winning producer Rob Rosenthal. These audio stories paint remarkable character portraits along the coast of Maine, through Eastport, Stonington, Searsport, Rockland, Bath, and Portland. Meet the “women lobstermen” of Stonington, island-hop aboard a Windjammer in Penobscot Bay, and discover the salty fishmonger whose work on Portland’s piers is integral to Maine’s culture of seafood. Get to know meticulous boat builders, and learn how the dramatic tides shape life in Downeast Maine. Enjoy this podcast series. Salts and Water is a project of Experience Maritime Maine, funded in part by the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Hamilton Marine, Maine’s MidCoast & Islands, and sponsored by Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors. To hear the other stories in the series, visit Salts and Water Podcast Series About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 10/28/22: Eastport- Maine’s Easternmost Town first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: Maine’s coastline has inspired writers and artists for generations. On today’s Coastal Conversations we are thrilled to feature three contemporary Maine writers who each have a special connection with the coast of Maine and coastlines around the world. We’ll hear their stories about the role of writing and art in their lives and what inspires their work today. Each author will share some of their recent work, including some poetry, haiku and prose. Our featured writers today include Linda Buckmaster, writer, teacher, and self-described wanderer from Belfast, Maine; Valerie Lawson, poet, publisher and teacher from Robbinston, Maine; and Kristen Lindquist, writer, poet, and naturalist from Camden, Maine. Guest/s: Linda Buckmaster. Writer, teacher, wanderer. Belfast, Maine. Linda’s most recent book, Elemental: A Miscellany of Salt Cod and Islands, is available at bookstores from Blue Hill to Portland or from the author. Her work will be featured at the 17th annual Belfast Poetry Festival, October 15th 2022. Valerie Lawson. Poet, publisher and teacher. Robbinston, Maine. Valerie’s poems about conserved lands at Reversing Falls in Pembroke were recently featured in the Writing the Land: Maine project. Her work will be featured at Poetry Express at University of Maine at Fort Kent on September 21, 22, 2022. Contact UMFK for more information. UMFK’s Acadian Archives to host Poetry Express Sept. 21-22 in Fiddlehead Focus/St. John Valley Times Kristen Lindquist. Writer, poet, naturalist. Camden, Maine. Kristen’s recent award-winning haiku e-chapbook It Always Comes Back Kristen’s Daily Haiku Blog About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 9/23/22: Three Contemporary Maine Writers Inspired by the Coast first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. In mid-July 2022, nearly 200 people gathered in Boston for the sixth National Working Waterfront Network conference. Working waterfronts are where people who make their living on the sea can access the water. They include ports, harbors, piers, wharves, launch ramps, mudflats, boat yards and more. The National Working Waterfront Network meets every 2-3 years to swap stories and strategies for strengthening and protecting waterfront infrastructure and working access to the coast. At the 2022 conference, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st Congressional District, long a working waterfront champion in partnership with Maine’s full delegation, gave a closing address during which she highlighted the importance of keeping the spotlight on these complex and critical spaces for our national economy and local, coastal culture. Voices throughout the event echoed the Congresswoman’s message, and on today’s Coastal Conversations show, we bring you some of those voices. Today, we feature portions of Representative Pingree’s address, along with stories and perspectives from people connected to working waterfronts in Maine, Louisiana, Oregon and California. All voices shared in today’s show were recorded at the National Working Waterfront Network Conference 2022. Guest/s: Afton Vigue, Maine Aquaculture Association Dominique Seibert, Louisiana Sea Grant Jamie Doyle, Oregon Sea Grant Michael Nelson, Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara, California About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 8/26/22: National Working Waterfront Network conference first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. Today our show is about the Mount Desert Island-based project called a Landscape of Change. Landscape of Change is a collaborative project with the goal of compiling and publishing historical records of natural history observations on Mount Desert Island, dating back to the late 1800s, and comparing these with contemporary data to document change over time. While the project focuses on the science of environmental change, it also explores how every-day people can collect meaningful scientific data, and how people might choose to respond to ecological change, as individuals, as artists, as natural resource managers, as activists or even as a society as a whole. 1. What are the historical records that provide the baseline from which your are able to document ecological change on Mount Desert Island? 2. What are the modern methods of data collection that citizens are involved in collecting? 3. What are the changes you have found in MDI’s natural environment in the past 100+ years 4. How can citizens and visitors become involved and learn more? Guests: Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society Johanna Blackman, Executive Director of A Climate to Thrive Jennifer Steen Booher, Artist-in-residence with MDI Historical Society. Seth Benz, Director of Bird Ecology at Schoodic Institute at Acadia Nation Park Catherine Schmitt, science writer with Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park Kyle Lima, Data Analyst, also with the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 7/22/22: Landscape of Change first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This episode: Most fishermen will tell you that the presence of Atlantic menhaden on the coast of Maine is cyclical. In the last few years, menhaden, or pogies as the small schooling fish are known locally, have returned in high enough numbers to trigger a commercial fishery that holds promise for many fishermen. Their presence is fortuitous. Pogies have filled a lobster bait void left behind by declining Atlantic herring stocks. Many lobstermen, scrambling for bait to feed their lobster traps, have settled on pogies. There are many others in the Gulf of Maine who are happy to see the pogies return in great numbers – chief among them: the predators like tuna, striped bass, bald eagles and even humpback whales. On our show today, we explore the world of pogies, the fishermen who harvest them and the species like tuna who eat them. We talk with two fishermen who describe how the fish are caught and why the fishery is increasingly important to Maine fishermen. And we’ll hear from a scientist about how his research on Atlantic Blue-fin tuna also reveals the increasing presence of pogies in Maine waters. -Return of Pogies (AKA Menhaden) to Maine -Fishermen’s stories about rigging up to purse seining for pogies. -Pogies as lobster bait -Pogies role in the Gulf of Maine food web Guests: Devyn Campbell, Boothbay Harbor fisherman (fishes for groundfish and in recent years pogies) Dave Horner, Southwest Harbor fisherman (has fished for lobster, scallop, shrimp, groundfish and in recent years pogies) Walt Golet, Assistant Professor at the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences and lead of the Pelagic Fisheries lab at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 6/24/22: Pogies (Atlantic menhaden) first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This episode: Many people in Maine have heard of Atlantic Salmon and Alewives, but do you know about Rainbow Smelt? These migratory sea-run fish may be swimming up your backyard streams right now! And historically, these fish have all featured in the lives of Maine residents for sustenance, income, and recreation. Smelt and tomcod populations are believed to have declined in recent decades. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the restoration of salmon and alewife habitat benefits all members of the sea-run fish family. Our show today features a compendium of smelt stories plus a few about tomcod and other sea-run fish, from interviews conducted over the course of the last year in an effort to document the traditional ecological knowledge of people who harvest, interact with, and observe sea-run fish. So make a note to tune in Friday afternoon, May 27, 2022, from 4-5 OM, when this month’s Coastal Conversation features stories and voices talking about seasons of change for Maine’s sea-run fish. Only on WERU community radio, 89.9 FM in Blue Hill and online at WERU.org. Key Discussion Points: -The seasonality of migrating fish -Stories and memories from people who have fished and observed smelt, tom cod and other searun fish since the 1970’s. -The ecology and biology of changing fisheries in Maine’s rivers, streams and estuaries Guests: Chris Johnson, ecology manager with the Passamaquoddy Tribe Sipayak Environmental Department Danielle Frechette, a marine resource scientist with Maine Department of Marine Resource’s bureau of sea-run fisheries and habitat Sean Beauregard, a student at the University of Maine and Smelt interview project intern John Melquist Sr., smelt fisherman, South Thomaston Kurt Soneson, a retired Marine Patrol Officer Sharon Morrill, wildlife watcher from Damariscotta Mills Dick and Max Grimm, a father and son fishermen from Yarmouth Lawrence Moffet, retired commercial lobsterman and recreational tomcod fisherman Special appreciation for support in producing this show goes to: Sean Beauregard, University of Maine student and intern; Justin Stevens, Maine Sea Grant sea-run fish ecosystem project coordinator; and Danielle Frechette, marine resource scientist with Maine Department of Marine Resources bureau of sea-run fisheries and habitat. About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 5/27/22: Rainbow Smelt first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Today, April 22, 2022, is Earth Day! And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than to explore the realm of one of the earth’s most interesting group of species: Seaweed. Seaweed has seen a surge in interest in Maine in the last few years, with a growing number of people paying attention to seaweed – from consumers to nutrition experts, from harvesters to farmers, from restoration ecologists to beauticians. And Maine finds itself at the center of it all. This week, just in time for Earth Day, Maine is celebrating Maine Seaweed Week – multiple days full of activities and opportunities to taste and learn about this incredible seafood. Maine Seaweed Week was founded four years ago by one of our interviewees on today’s show, Josh Rogers of Heritage Seaweed and Cup of Sea teas. Our second interviewee, Jaclyn Robidoux of Maine Sea Grant, has also been very involved with organizing this week’s special seaweed events. We turn to both of them to learn about the various seaweeds found on the Maine coast, how it can be used, and how you, our listeners, can join in on the seaweed celebrations happening up and down our shores through May 1st 2022. -Earth Day -Maine Seaweed Week 2022 -Maine seaweed species and products Jaclyn Robidoux, marine extension associate at Maine Sea Grant Josh Rogers, Founder of Heritage Seaweed, Cup of Sea teas, and Maine Seaweed Week Other credits: Thanks to Ellie White, our radio production assistant for this show, for all of her production help, her interviews with our guests and her vision for how we could celebrate Earth Day today by taking a deep dive into seaweed. Ellie is a senior at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor where she has been studying storytelling, audio production and human ecology. Thanks also to Galen Koch of The First Coast, who helps train our radio production assistants. About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

The post Coastal Conversations 4/22/22: Earth Day and Seaweed first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.