Samuel Hanes

My background is in historical geography and human ecology. Most of my work looks at people’s response to the challenge created by complexity in human-environmental systems. I recently finished a book on the evolution of oyster management in the U.S. between 1870 and 1920. The book examines why the first state shellfish commissions often attempted to simplify oyster management in ways that would have harmed fishermen. I have also studied crop pollination in the Northeast and rural gentrification on the Maine coast. Both of these projects look at how people preserve complexity –complex ecosystem services, in the former case, and complex social processes that balance goals in rural communities in the latter. I am presently writing a book on the history of Maine and Maritime Canada’s blueberry industry. It focuses on the knowledge system farmers and scientists built to cope with environmental and competitive stress.