Each April for the past four years, Source has honored a handful of accomplished Mainers, Maine organizations and Maine businesses working in the arena of sustainability. Narrowing our choice to a handful is always an absorbing task, but never an easy one, as you can see from a few nearly irresistible lines in support of candidates that, alas, didn’t make the cut. (Please try again next year!)

“You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in Maine more excited about worm composting.”

“The strength of the (Bath Forestry) Committee lies in its older members who have been involved since 1992 and their teachings that they pass along to new members – an important lineage necessary for a Committee that deals with 150-year-old ‘citizens.’” The citizens referred to here, if it’s not clear, are the town’s majestic trees.

“He is doing his best to spread the word and make sure that worm bins and worms are available to anyone who is willing to help save the world, one worm bin at a time.” Do we seem stuck on worms? What can we say? This year, we got nominations for two ardent worm-composting practitioners.

We also heard from a 14-year-old boy nominating his mother, who passionately advocates for water resources in western Maine. “She is the best mentor I could ask for,” he wrote.

And we got a nomination for a sixth-grader from her teacher, who described the girl as “a passionate present and future activist for the climate.”

Altogether, we had 100-plus mostly terrific nominations that – as in past years – make us feel hopeful in what often seem like dark days for the environment, certainly warm and stormy ones for the climate.

We were impressed with the number of nominations that talked about bringing people together, about building bridges (no doubt out of sustainably harvested wood) between scientists and ordinary people, loggers and treehuggers, new and old Mainers, farmers and eaters. Tackling the immense environmental problems the planet faces – climate change, mass extinction, population explosion and water scarcity, to name a few – is going to require all of us. We’re so pleased to announce this year’s 2018 Source Award winners. They are leading the way.

Peggy Grodinsky

SOURCE Editor