 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 16, 2011
CONTACT: Lou Morin, Director of Marketing and Public Relations
(207) 330-4606 or lmorin@mpbn.net
MPBN to Debut Original TV Productions on Science, Sustainability
and Economic Growth in Maine
Two episodes of Sustainable Maine to air Tuesday, September 27
beginning at 8:00 pm
(Lewiston, Maine) – The Maine Public Broadcasting Network will premiere two new original half-hour television productions about a new way of combining biophysical sciences with social science and economics to study Maine’s changing landscape, and how to sustain it for future generations, on Tuesday, September 27 at 8:00 pm.
The first two episodes of Sustainable Maine focus on Maine fishermen, loggers and scientists from the University of Maine, USM, Bates College and Bowdoin College as they work together to balance economic growth with environmental sensitivity and local traditions of land and water use in Maine.
In The Triple Bottom Line the first of the two programs, the title refers to the business concept that economic activity should not only benefit the traditional bottom line of profit, but also “meet the needs of the people and the planet.”
The show examines how this concept is being applied in real Maine settings, first in Cobscook Bay off the coast of Eastport, where potential new advances in tidal power generation must also co-exist with traditional fisheries, and on a private woodlot in Otisfield where the landowner must take into account long-term land productivity and Maine traditions of recreational land use on private woodlands.
In the second episode, Desperate Alewives, the relationship between science, sociology and economics is illustrated as scientists work with local fishermen and citizen scientists to study alewife runs in the Androscoggin and Kennebec River watersheds to highlight the social, ecological and economic links between the long-term health of fresh water rivers and lakes and the viability of coastal fisheries.
At its core, the Sustainable Maine series examines the emergence of a new branch of scientific inquiry known as “sustainability science” embraced by teams taking part in what is known as the Sustainability Solutions Initiative, or SSI, a project funded by Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine.
These two new productions are part of a new collaboration between MPBN and Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine and are funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
EPSCoR – pronounced “EPS-core” – is an acronym for Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Maine EPSCoR is a 5-year project funded by a $20 million grant from the NSF, which funds similar initiatives in other states with a mission to form “collaborations among academic, government and private sector stakeholders that advance scientific research, promote innovation and provide multiple societal benefits.”
Three more episodes in the Sustainable Maine series are being produced for broadcast in 2012.
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