Never Say No to an Island

DOWN EAST magazine • September 10, 2021

The first island I stepped foot on changed my life. I didn’t think then that I knew everything about how nature works on islands, but as an aspiring ecologist, I thought I knew something. It turned out everything I had been taught about islands was, in Maine’s case, wrong. Back then, the abiding idea among conservationists was that when left alone, nature, on islands and elsewhere, tends toward long-term stability and that people wreck this balance. This notion led to conservation policies that discouraged human presence on islands, lest it thwart nature’s grand design. It turns out humans have been an integral part of island ecosystems since, well, almost forever. ~ Philip Conkling