Maine’s land, water, and forests are the foundation everything else is built on. The fishing industry. The farms. The tourism that brings people here from all over the world. The clean drinking water that flows from our wells. The trails our families have hiked for generations.

These are not amenities. They are who we are.

When we protect Maine’s environment, we are protecting livelihoods: the lobsterman’s livelihood, the guide’s livelihood, the farmer’s livelihood, the small inn owner’s livelihood. When we let it be degraded (by pollution, by corporate shortcuts, by shortsighted policy), we are not just harming nature, we are pulling the ground out from under our working Mainers.

The communities that are most dependent on Maine’s natural resources are often the first to feel it when those resources are threatened. That is why environmental protection is not separate from our economic agenda; it is our economic agenda. Clean water. Healthy fisheries. Working forests. A coastline that stays wild. These are the conditions that work for we who make up present-day Maine and for generations to come.

Maine Democrats will fight to protect what makes this state irreplaceable. Because once it is gone, it is gone. And we are not willing to let that happen on our watch.