Maine

Opinion: Climate-smart forestry can grow Maine’s bioeconomy

Published

1 year ago

July 31, 2024

Opinion: Climate-smart forestry can grow Maine’s bioeconomy

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visit to Maine last week came at a critical time for the future of our forests, our climate and our local bioeconomy.

Looking to build markets and supply chains for climate-friendly forest products, the Biden administration just announced $418,420 for Maine’s Timber HP GO Lab to produce sustainable wood insulation. And the USDA’s Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities is aiming even higher, working with the New England Forestry Foundation to help the first commercial landowners pilot climate-smart forestry management on their working lands.

Six landowners – Robbins Lumber Company, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, The Baskahegan Company, Fallen Timber, Clayton Lake Woodlands and Seven Islands Land Company – will receive incentives that support a range of climate-smart forestry practices designed to increase carbon in the forest and in resulting wood products. Our goal is to show how owners of working lands can increase carbon storage while continuing to harvest climate-smart wood products and maintain revenues.

We estimate that the acres enrolled in the first round of the Commercial Landowner Incentive Program have the potential to store an additional 250,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent as compared to current practices. These results will be tested and determined based on modeling that will be a key part of the project. This initial directional estimate shows that, over the coming decades, this additional carbon storage could offset the amount of carbon emitted from the energy used annually to heat and cool 23,000 homes.

Unleashing the massive powerhouse of natural carbon storage via climate-smart forest management holds enormous potential across New England. If we manage our forests to climate and ecological standards, our research shows forests could deliver 30% of the carbon emissions reductions we need to meet our region’s net-zero goals and be a key input to a growing, sustainable bioeconomy.

This effort must be comprehensive and it must be region-wide. Realizing the carbon benefits of forests requires a systems approach, combining ecological and climate objectives. We need to stop net loss of forests, conserve important wildlands and wilderness areas, spread the adoption of climate-smart forestry and expand our bioeconomy by using wood and other natural materials to replace carbon-intensive steel and concrete. All told, NEFF’s analysis shows these steps could pull more than 646 million metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the next 30 years, nearly one-third of the total energy-related carbon emissions we need to eliminate to meet 2050 climate goals.

A key part of this transition will be growing the market for low-carbon wood products in the building and construction sector, which accounts for 37% of global emissions. Today, we build most of our multifamily homes and office buildings with steel and concrete, two carbon-intensive products. But development of new wood-based mass timber technologies has made it possible to build new tall wood buildings that use less carbon to build and can actually store the carbon in wood products for as long as they stand.

We can produce climate-smart wood to maximize carbon sequestration and storage, protect biodiversity and produce climate-smart wood products. Climate-smart forest management can help our forests grow more valuable trees which store more carbon while being more resilient to the impacts of climate change. And, by sourcing our wood locally, we can grow our local bioeconomy to benefit our local communities.

If we manage our forests with an eye to climate as well as biodiversity, we can unleash powerful natural climate solutions right here in Maine that help our rural communities, our forests and our global climate.

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Maine

After feds cut key food insecurity survey, Maine lawmaker urges state to fill data void

Published

11 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

After feds cut key food insecurity survey, Maine lawmaker urges state to fill data void

With food insecurity on the rise, Maine lawmakers are scrambling to ensure they have a sense of how many people are going hungry after the federal government’s recent cancellation of a key food insecurity survey. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security Report, started under former President Bill Clinton, measured rates of food insecurity […]

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Maine

Maine Mariners add two defenseman

Published

23 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Defensemen Max Wanner was re-assigned to the Maine Mariners from the Providence Bruins on Thursday. Defenseman Michael Underwood was also re-assigned to Maine.

Wanner, 22, was acquired by the Boston Bruins when they traded Trent Federic to Edmonton last March. He played in 15 games for the AHL Providence Bruins at the end of last season, and seven this season.

Underwood returns for his second stint with the Mariners. He appeared in 67 games with Maine last season.

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Maine

Maine libraries scramble for books after distributor closes

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Maine libraries scramble for books after distributor closes

Rosanne Barnes, an adult services reader’s advisor, shelves new fiction books at Portland Public Library on Wednesday. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Some hot new titles have been arriving late at Maine libraries in recent months, after the closing of one the country’s major library book distributors.

Baker & Taylor, based in North Carolina, began winding down its operations in the fall and expects to close entirely this month. The company’s demise has left many Maine libraries scrambling to buy books through other sources, including local book stores, and to endure deliveries taking twice as long.

That means patrons expecting to get new books on or near publication dates are waiting longer to start turning pages.

At the Portland Public Library, “Heart The Lover” by Maine author Lily King wasn’t available to patrons until nearly a month after its Sept. 30 publication date, even though it was ordered in July. At the Libby Memorial Library in Old Orchard Beach, John Grisham’s Oct. 21 release “The Widow” took six weeks to arrive. Staff at the Kennbunk Free Library weren’t sure how long they’d have to wait for “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, so they bought two copies at a local store, Octopus Bookshop. As of this week, there were 28 holds on the book.

“Baker & Taylor closing has totally rocked the library world nationwide. It has long been the preferred vendor among many Maine libraries, and their closure is certainly having an impact on us,” said Sarah Skawinski, associate director of the Portland Public Library and president of the Maine Library Association. “I think we’re over the hump now, though.”

Skawinski and other librarians say Baker & Taylor had been having problems getting books from publishers and had been slow with some deliveries, a problem that began during the COVID pandemic. Last year when it became apparent Baker & Taylor was likely going out of business, many libraries switched to the nation’s other major distributor, Ingram Content Group, as well as another company called Brodart Library Supplies. But with increased demand, both those companies have been slow in filling some orders in the last couple months, too.

Industry publications reported that Baker & Taylor’s problems were mostly financial, beginning in the pandemic and included the failed acquisition of another company. An email to Baker & Taylor asking for more information on its closure was not answered Wednesday.

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Aspen Kraushaar checks books in at the front desk at the Kennebunk Free Library on Wednesday. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

Not every Maine library bought the majority of its books from Baker & Taylor; some used other distibutors instead. Staff at the Waterville Public Library, for instance, say they rarely used the company and weren’t impacted. The Lithgow Public Library in Augusta was only getting about four books a month from Baker & Taylor, said Director Sarah Curra Schultz-Nielsen. Those included children’s books, reference books and travel guides. Finding other distributors for those books, including Brodart and Bookshop, a company that sells mainly to independent bookstores, has been “mildly inconvenient” for staff and has not impacted patrons, Schultz-Nielsen said.

But other libraries used Baker & Taylor for most of its new releases, including fiction and non-fiction, as well to replacements for worn-out books. Stephen King’s books, for instance, have to be replaced pretty regularly, some librarians said.

The Portland Public Library had been ordering about 1,000 items a month from Baker & Taylor, mostly printed books. The library has about 359,000 physical items in its collection. Now, new books are coming to the library from Ingram, but will take maybe four weeks to arrive, compared to one to two weeks when Baker & Taylor was running smoothly.

And there is added work for librarians: While Baker & Taylor sent books that had already been catalogued and ready to be shelved, with bar codes and spine labels, Ingram is not yet offering that service, said Nicole Harkins, cataloging librarian at the Portland library.

“Patrons are aware it’s taking longer and they’re being patient,” Harkins said.

Kennebunk Free Library also switched to Ingram, and staff are spending more time prepping books, including putting protective plastic covers on them, said Allison Atkins, assistant director and head of adult services. Atkins said library staff wrote about their “book ordering troubles” in a library newsletter and on social media, so patrons would understand why new books were slow to arrive. The library used to get about 100 books a month from Baker & Taylor and despite still being “way behind” on new books, patrons have been patient, Atkins said.

For smaller libraries with smaller staffs, finding a new supplier is not always easy. Baker & Taylor was the major books supplier for Davis Memorial Library in Limington. The staff there is so small that they didn’t have time to research or compare new suppliers, so they waited until early this month, said Heidi Libby, the library’s director. As a result, the library has very few new arrivals on its shelves right now and has been filling the “new book” shelves with donated books as well as ordering from Amazon.

Several librarians said this week that local book stores have been a big help during this period, getting books quickly and pricing them affordably. Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshops, which has 10 stores across the state, saw its sales to local libraries increase from $50,000 in 2024 to nearly $100,000 in 2025, said Jeff Curtis, owner and CEO of Sherman’s.

The Auburn Public Library would sometimes get more than 300 books a month from Baker & Taylor, including books for adults, teens, and children, as well as fiction and nonfiction as well as some large print books and CDs, said Nancy O’Toole, collections manager at the library.

When Baker & Taylor started having problems, the library bought books from Amazon and the local Bull Moose music and book store chain. Now, with Baker & Taylor closing, the library has switched to Ingram, but has seen delivery delays as that company has been inundated with new customers. This week the library got an order of books that were released in November, including “Exit Strategy” by Lee Child and Andrew Child, “The Seven Rings” by Nora Roberts and “Return of the Spider” by James Patterson.

“The hope is that now that the holidays are over, shipping from Ingram will expedite. But just to be safe, we are choosing to buy certain books elsewhere, including titles by big-name authors, popular series, or anything tied to a fast-approaching holiday,” said O’Toole. “Patrons want to see those titles on the shelf in a timely manner, and we want to make sure we fulfill those expectations.”

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