introducing the guide

We are delighted to share How to Engage in Offshore Wind Development: A Guide to Values, Questions, Perspectives, and Pathways Forward in Coastal Maine, with you.

This guide is designed to support many different people – community members, developers, government agencies and nonprofit organizations – as we navigate ongoing discussions and decisions related to coastal and ocean development. 

While we anticipate that this guide will be relevant to people facing many different types of development challenges and opportunities, here we focus on the development of offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Maine. Ocean renewable energy presents new opportunities and challenges for state and federal governments, tribal nations, and existing ocean users. States plan to use floating offshore wind to meet renewable energy goals and supply needed power to an increasingly electrified nation. Yet the impacts of developing two million acres in one of the most productive marine environments in North America – in which fishing, recreation, and other activities benefit millions of residents and visitors – remain relatively unknown.  

We use the idea of “place-technology fit,” or the degree to which a project suits a place, to document and illuminate the values, perspectives, and critical questions held by rights holders and stakeholders. Based on interviews with 42 people, we identify indicators of place-technology fit. The indicators recognize key aspects of place, including living memory, community cohesion, pressing needs, leadership, a community’s broader vision for itself and the future, and an understanding of what makes sense for rural electricity infrastructure.

Maine is a state that has traditionally relied on shared values and trusting relationships to navigate environmental, economic, and social challenges and opportunities. This guide highlights how these values—and the trust built from understanding them—can support community adaptation and thriving in the face of both socioeconomic and environmental change.

We look forward to your feedback on this guide, and hope that it is useful! Please contact Dr. Jessica Reilly-Moman at jessica.reillymoman@maine.edu or Dr. Heather Leslie at heather.leslie@maine.edu for more information.

Please reference this guide as: Reilly-Moman, J. and H. Leslie. 2025. How to Engage in Offshore Wind Development: A Guide to Values, Questions, Perspectives, and Pathways Forward in Coastal Maine. Walpole, ME: 91±¬ÁĎ Darling Marine Center. 53 pp. Available at /leslie-lab/2025/05/25/engaging-in-offshore-wind-development/

This was the first time the knowledge of shellfish harvesters and experts working within these estuaries was documented, and findings have expanded the information available to communities who steward shellfish in Maine and beyond.  Together with shellfish harvesters and other local experts, the students and their advisors, Profs. Heather Leslie and Joshua Stoll, documented how tidal river ecosystems have changed over time and how harvesters and other estuary users have adapted.

Read more about , published in the international scientific journal Ambio, here: /news/blog/2025/05/13/darling-marine-center-documents-local-shellfish-harvesting-trends-changes/

Please cite as Risley, S., M. L. Britsch, J. S. Stoll, H. M. Leslie. 2025. Mapping local knowledge supports science and stewardship. Ambio .

To learn more about the lab’s engaged research in midcoast Maine, please see the webpage for the Damariscotta River Estuary Community Science Program:

Learn more about the study łó±đ°ů±đ.Ěý

Read more here… 

Later in November, Sarah presented in Bremen, the State of the Medomak River Estuary report. The Medomak report is available łó±đ°ů±đ.Ěý

Please cite these two reports as follows:

Britsch, M. L., S. Risley, J. S. Stoll, and H. M. Leslie. 2021. State of the Damariscotta River Estuary Report: Local knowledge of trends in the shellfish resource & human activity in the Damariscotta River Estuary. Technical report prepared for Damariscotta-Newcastle Joint Shellfish Committee, 91±¬ÁĎ Darling Marine Center, Walpole, Maine. 32 pp.

Britsch, M., S. Risley, J. Stoll, and H. M. Leslie. 2021. State of the Medomak River Estuary. Technical report prepared for the Town of Medomak by 91±¬ÁĎ Darling Marine Center, Walpole, Maine. 28 pp.

]]> /leslie-lab/2021/09/07/new-research-on-aquaculture-perspectives/ Wed, 08 Sep 2021 01:38:50 +0000 /leslie-lab-new/?p=3919 Congratulations to Melissa on the publication of her Masters thesis research in Marine Policy!

/news/blog/2021/09/07/new-aquaculture-research-highlights-areas-of-consensus-disagreement/

They highlight the roles diverse researchers and research stations have played in generating knowledge about the estuary, and marine ecosystems more generally.

We expect this collection will be of interest to scientists and community members alike, and help guide and support future research related to this estuary and the people who are part of it, as well as the larger Gulf of Maine ecosystem.

In this paper, which was one of the thesis chapters for Marina’s dual degrees in Marine Biology and Marine Policy at the 91±¬ÁĎ, we describe the fundamental drivers, attributes, and desired outcomes commonly used to characterize these management concepts. We also present three examples of how EBFM and co-management are integrated in practice. These examples highlight that these concepts exist on a continuum, with elements of co-management regularly appearing in conventional management regimes and elements of EBFM appearing in fisheries co-management initiatives.

Congratulations to Marina on getting this work out, and on her current position as a 2021 Sea Grant Knauss Fellow and Climate and Fisheries Specialist with NOAA Fisheries’s Office of Science and Technology!