Midcoast Conservancy is delighted to welcome Shri Verrill as its new watershed restoration manager. The watershed restoration manager provides leadership for eco-system based restoration in Midcoast Conservancy’s service area at the watershed scale, from the headwaters to the estuary.

Verrill is currently overseeing fish passage projects in the Sheepscot River including the newly completed Head Tide and Coopers Mills dams, and is planning fish passage restoration at Branch Pond and Clary Lake dams. As a restoration ecologist and wetland scientist with a technical project management experience ranging from native plant horticulture and restoration in Maui, Hawaii and rare plant monitoring, natural communities assessment, wetland delineation, stream habitat improvement, dam removal, fish passage, salt marsh and tidal restoration in Maine, Verrill will help incorporate restoration in the Midcoast Conservancy service area with the goal of increasing resiliency to sea-level rise and other climate change impacts.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that ecological restoration at any level is taking place on indigenous land, in this case in Wabanaki, eastern Abenaki territory,” says Verrill. “While I do have a professional, scientific, and academic background that informs my approach, perhaps even more important is the sense of reciprocity and really belonging to the lands, waters, and all the plants, animals, hills and water bodies as relatives. When we expand our sense of self and community to include all beings, then in truth we can say, ‘Yes, together we are a force of nature!’”

To reach Verrill, email her at Shri@midcoastconservancy or call her at (207) 389-5177.