One of Maine’s most prolific and well-regarded environmental journalists has died.
For three decades, until 2002, Phyllis Austin wrote hundreds of stories about the forest products industry, Baxter State Park, environmental regulations and land conservation for the Maine Times. She was also someone whose investigative reporting helped influence environmental policies.
Austin began her career covering the State House for the Associated Press, and was named the AP’s first environmental writer in 1972. She went on to work for the former Maine Times, one of the state’s leading publications for environmental news.
“I think she probably wrote more stories about more conservation issues in Maine than anyone in history,” says Jym St. Pierre of Restore: The North Woods, a friend of Austin’s who also worked with her on some of those issues.
St. Pierre says Austin had a knack for knowing what to cover before anyone else was paying attention. He describes her as one of the most “quietly dogged” environmental journalists he ever met.
For example, she organized volunteers to research land use issues and recreation practices and to visit remote trout ponds.
“She was influential in a lot of ways,” St. Pierre says. “Her writing influenced some of the laws and regulations that were passed in the state that improved our environmental protections, and then in the nonprofit sector she also helped to get ‘Friends of Baxter State Park’ off the ground.”
Austin wrote two biographies, including one published last year about philanthropist Roxanne Quimby. But St. Pierre says Austin’s biggest passion was hiking. She explored places as diverse as the Scottish Highlands and the Himalayas in Nepal.
Her last story, published in the current edition of AMC Outdoors Magazine, is titled “On reaching the End of the Trail.” In it, Austin describes a freak injury in a ski accident in the 1980s that resulted in more than a dozen surgeries and eventually caught up with her more than 30 years later.
She describes her lasting connection to wild landscapes and shares her mantra for exploring them: “Do it while you can.”
Phyllis Austin was 75 years old. A memorial service is tentatively planned for January.
