Safety conference set for Oct. 11

The 47th international meeting and safety conference of the International Association for Safety and Survival Training (IASST) is scheduled for Oct. 11 at Maine Maritime Academy, Castine. The conference is expected to include world leaders in the field of maritime safety training. Speakers will present papers on topics such as Fishing Vessel Safety, Search and

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Maine LNG conference planned for July 29

Four Maine organizations and a regional advocacy group have organized a multi-faceted conference on LNG and the implications of siting a plant in the state. The conference is planned for Thursday, July 29 at Bowdoin College, starting at 8 a.m. The sponsoring groups are the Island Institute, Bowdoin College, the University of Southern Maine, the

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Alone in the Land of the Red Socks

Warning: This essay is intended for serious baseball fans only. If you cannot identify something odd about the title of this article, do not, I repeat, DO NOT continue reading. Supporters of the Red Sox and Phillies have a lot in common. Both are longtime sufferers who share feelings of helplessness, inadequacy, and, in my

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Killer fog for birds is not that unusual

The CBC headline on June 2 was, “Fog kills songbirds in Bay of Fundy.” and the reporter added that the count was “thousands” of birds. All in all, it conjured up the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow.” But Dan Busby, wildlife biologist for the Canadian Wildlife Service, based in Sackville, New Brunswick, said that such

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The Long View: Sea Change

Twenty years gives one the opportunity for reflection, so here I go. More than anything else that the Island Institute has accomplished is something that hardly fits in a single, neat, bulleted statement, but is as real as it is intangible. Twenty years ago – or even ten – when we headed off to places

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Two oceans commissions agree on many points, but propose different approaches

Lee Crockett of the Marine Fisheries Conservation Network said he was “struck by the amount of overlap” when he compared the recommendations of two commissions that recently studied the needs for managing U.S. oceans. Environmentalists worried that the Bush-appointed U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy would come up with vastly different recommendations from those of the

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