Giving Compass' Take:

• This podcast explores the price of climate change that Maine clammers pay as waters warm and ecosystems shift. 

• How can funders work to ensure that vulnerable communities are prepared for the changes to come? 

• Learn about climate change as a driver of global economic inequality. 

Maine clammers have traditionally bagged about half of the nation’s entire soft-shell clam harvest. But the harvest has been declining for years, and in 2017, it was the lowest in 87 years.

What happened to all the clams? Scientists point to climate change. The Gulf of Maine has been getting warmer. It’s much more hospitable to green crabs and oysters than clams.

As clamming has gotten harder, Chad Coffin, president of the Maine Clammers Association, has taken on new kinds of work. He started an oyster farm, for example. But he worries that not everyone can adapt to climate change as well as he has.

“The problem is that the people that are most dependent on fisheries are the ones that don’t believe [that climate change is happening],” he says. In his community, it’s educated people who are finding ways to earn a living in a warming world, getting grants, and building aquaculture projects. “It’s not everyday, average clammers or fishermen.”

Read the full article about Maine clammers at Futurity.