By Jessie Traxler, Land Conservation Fellow

As a recent graduate, it’s pretty common for people to ask me what I studied in school. What’s also become common is their surprise as they try to piece together how I graduated in May with a major in Political Economy but ended up as the Land Conservation Fellow at Mass Audubon. I was initially drawn to the fellowship because it was an opportunity for me to learn about a completely new career path in the environmental field and to use some of the ArcGIS skills I learned in class. However, as someone who spent 5 semesters as a teacher’s assistant for an introductory microeconomics course, I would be the first to tell you that I soon discovered how “economics is everywhere.”

Many of these connections arose at Rally, the Land Trust Alliance’s annual Land Conservation Conference. Rally is an annual opportunity for employees, board members, and anyone involved with the work of land trusts to network and exchange ideas. People came from across the country to Denver to discuss land conservation projects and strategies, and as a fellow, it was a great opportunity for me to meet new people and learn through different sessions what this work looks like at a variety of organizations.

One session I attended focused on land conservation tax credits. One of the projects I have worked on as a fellow has been completing a landowner’s application for the Massachusetts tax credit program, so I was excited to attend this session to learn more about how this tool is structured in other states. These tax credit programs exist to compensate landowners for the value of the land that they are permanently protecting, by donating it to a land trust.

Something I found interesting about this conversation was that it focused specifically on transferrable credits, which means that landowners can sell the credit to interested parties through a broker, instead of putting the credit towards paying off their own taxes. The transferable credit is a more equitable option for low-income landowners because they can receive the full monetary value of the credit in cash through the broker.

However, this transferability got me thinking about some of the wider implications of transferring tax credits, namely who is receiving these write-offs. The short answer tends to be those who owe a lot of money in taxes, which are often corporations; the session helped me think critically about this mechanism, and how different market-based solutions can both encourage more investment in conservation and simultaneously benefit companies that do harm.

Economics showed up in other ways during Rally, too. For example, the Friday morning talk focused on how conserving stretches of land can exponentially positively impact ecosystem health. The talk described how conserving contiguous land is worth more than the sum of its parts. For example, protecting 100 acres of contiguous land has more benefits than 4 parcels of 25 acres, even though the same total acreage is protected. Focusing on these contiguous projects leads to more effective ecosystem services—the benefits that humans get from ecosystems—in these protected habitats.

After listening to this talk, I had a stronger understanding of why Mass Audubon’s Land Conservation team considers connectivity with other conserved lands when evaluating potential land projects. I also better understood how one could use connectivity to argue for a higher appraised value for a land project because of its more effective ecosystem services.

Since the start of my fellowship, I’ve begun to see much more concrete connections between what I studied in school, and the conservation work I do now. Rally helped draw some of these connections for me, and I’m excited to use the knowledge I gained to continue to support applications to Massachusetts’ Land Conservation Tax Credit program and to better articulate the economic case for protecting nature.

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Jessie Traxler (she/her) is originally from Massachusetts. She recently graduated from Georgetown University, where she majored in Political Economy and minored in Environmental Studies and Chinese. She is passionate about increasing access to the outdoors, especially for youth and historically marginalized communities. When she’s not out on the trail, Jessie enjoys playing ultimate frisbee and refereeing youth soccer. 

By Aiyana Washington, Sanctuary Engagement Fellow

For several years in college, I volunteered as a docent at a biological preserve managed by my university. Though the space housed gorgeous trails and an educational field station less than four miles from campus, a person could only enter the front gate if they navigated a then-outdated website and filled out a request form for a docent to supervise the visit. To better connect students and staff with this vibrant terrain, I conducted a campus-wide survey about barriers to access and found that nearly half of the university’s community was completely unaware of the preserve’s existence, let alone that visitation was a possibility.

In response to my research, I heard from a handful of outraged docents who suggested that increasing visitation to the preserve threatened ongoing conservation. They believed that meeting our stewardship goals meant separating humans from the landscape almost entirely. This limited way of thinking was surprising to me, but it underscored a broader legacy of conservation movements barring people from participation in the outdoors, despite the need for community connection and public education to successfully care for a place and combat environmental degradation. As I worked to bring more of my communities to the preserve, this experience motivated me to dedicate my career to challenging deeply rooted notions of exclusion in green spaces.

When I began my fellowship at Mass Audubon, it was clear that expanding access to nature is core to the organization’s ethos. Mass Audubon manages wildlife sanctuaries across the state to not only protect and restore ecosystems but to also engage people in environmental education and action through public programming, self-guided exploration of trails, and volunteer opportunities. The hands-on work and generosity of volunteers to care for habitat and maintain trails is especially essential to the health of many sanctuaries, and it’s a fantastic entry point into conservation work, offering volunteers a sense of empowerment, community, and connection to New England ecology.

My fellowship position supports the long-term goal of increasing volunteerism at two Mass Audubon sanctuaries that are public-transit accessible, Habitat Education Center (Habitat) in Belmont and the Boston Nature Center (BNC) in Mattapan.

On an average day, I’ll spend my morning with the sanctuary’s property manager and a group of volunteers to work on an activity that furthers the ecological priorities of the sanctuary. In just over two months, I have worked with more than 200 volunteers on a wide range of projects including clearing porcelain berry and nonnative bittersweet from meadows, taking Habitat’s resident goats out to graze on Saturdays, and planting dozens of native shrubs around the BNC’s nature play area. One of my favorite aspects of my role has been lifting the veil on what conservation looks like in practice and showing volunteers how a few hours of work contributes to a larger mission: If we uproot the invasive plants in this meadow, then we’ll begin to see more insects and pollinators. If we bring goats to graze in regions overgrown with bittersweet and buckthorn, then we will promote native plant diversity. If we add native trees to this forest today, then they’ll be likely to survive when scientists start an eventual wetland restoration project.

I’m also helping Habitat and the BNC be more proactive about connecting community members with volunteer opportunities and our sanctuaries more broadly. Through consulting volunteer reports, marketing lists, and the brilliant minds of Mass Audubon education staff and sanctuary directors, I created an outreach plan to build new relationships with community-based organizations, college professors, other nonprofits, and even healthcare institutions.

Volunteer programs like these are one way that Mass Audubon breaks down barriers to engagement with the outdoors and fosters awareness of and investment in environmental conservation. Stewardship of these protected areas is a continuous journey, and the lasting health of this region relies on a multitude of perspectives and skill sets, no shortage of bug spray, and intentional connection with the community members who benefit from our doors, and trails, being open.

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Aiyana Washington (she/they) is a storyteller and advocate whose passions rest at the intersection of climate science, social justice, and community-based art. She studied Earth systems and environmental communication at Stanford University, learning to build grassroots campaigns and craft media that champions decolonial and cooperative ecological stewardship. When she’s not outdoors, Aiyana also enjoys theater, reading science fiction and fantasy, and playing board games with friends. 

This blog was written as a joint effort among the 5 fellows from the Environmental Fellowship Program 2025-2026 cohort: Isabella Acosta-Jimenez (Land Conservation Fellow), Tami Gordon (Nature in the City Fellow), Scarlett Gonzalez (Climate Education Fellow), Hannah McGrath (Advocacy Campaign Fellow), and Tiare Sierra Rivera (Ecological Restoration Fellow).  

Coming from different academic disciplines, personal experiences, and geographic backgrounds, we joined Mass Audubon’s Environmental Fellowship Program as a cohort of early-career conservation professionals. We’ve spent the past 14 months learning from one another, building new skills, and contributing to environmental work across Massachusetts. Together, our experiences have been shaped not only by our individual projects, but also by the relationships, mentorship, and shared growth that defined our fellowship journey. 

As we come to the end of our fellowship experience, we want to reflect on what we are taking away. The following is a collection of experiences and lessons shaped by our time within our teams and as a cohort. 

1. Comparison is the thief of joy. Everyone is on their own journeys, so honor the time it takes to go on yours.   

I didn’t grow up always knowing I wanted to be an environmentalist. Throughout high school, I intended to pursue software engineering, but in college, I made a drastic shift to environmental science. Entering this new field, I experienced a strong sense of imposter syndrome, surrounded by future doctors, organic chemists, seasoned hikers, and peers who all seemed to have a lifetime of immersive experiences in nature.   

Over time, I learned to ground myself by reconnecting with why I chose this path. I remind myself that my skills and experiences are unique, valid, and essential to expanding our understanding of what access to nature can look like.   

After graduating college, I was honored with an Environmental Justice Award—something that first-year Boston University Tami could never have imagined. It’s never too late to change directions and find your place. – Tami Gordon   

2. Don’t be afraid to ask or say the obvious thing – it might not be obvious to everyone   

Throughout my fellowship, I’ve been in meetings where I assumed everyone else was thinking the same thing I was. While working with a team to coordinate signature collection for Nature for Massachusetts (a ballot initiative dedicated to funding to protect land and water) a colleague encouraged me not to be afraid to say the obvious thing, because what seems obvious to one person may not be obvious to everyone else.   

Because my colleagues had more experience, I often felt that anything I noticed or questioned must already be obvious to them. Sometimes that was true, but often it wasn’t. I learned that clearly saying “the obvious thing” actually helped center the conversation and ensure everyone is on the same page.  – Hannah McGrath  

3. Know when to ask for help or say “no.”   

As an early professional, it’s exciting to say yes to every opportunity, especially if it’s new to you. But as responsibilities grow, so does the need to set boundaries. Asking for support or declining additional work when you’re at capacity is part of being a strong, reliable teammate. – Isabella Acosta-Jimenez  

4. Time management – leaving places earlier, giving yourself time to arrive.   

I have a bad habit of being late, and the Fellowship has taught me two important things about what that means in a professional context. First, pretend the arrival time is 10-15 minutes earlier than the actual start time: that will most likely get you there right on time!   

Second, know yourself and know your limitations: you know that you are often late and are doing what you can to fix that, but whether you like it or not, you will still be late sometimes – remember it is not the end of the world and there’s no need to beat yourself up too much. – Tiare Sierra Rivera  

5. Say yes to as many opportunities and new experiences as you can.   

I don’t consider myself outdoorsy, but this year I found myself waist-deep in a bog searching for turtles with some of Mass Audubon’s ecological restoration team. This experience really pushed me outside of my comfort zone, both physically and intellectually, but I learned a lot about bog ecology, spotted turtles, and Mass Audubon’s efforts to restore this former cranberry bog into a thriving wetland.   

When you say yes to as many opportunities as this fellowship (and life) has to offer, you might learn a new skill or, at the very least, have fun.  – Scarlett Gonzalez  

6. You’re all going through this together—different journeys, same destination. Lean into the cohort experience as coworkers and potential friends.   

My first experience working with Mass Audubon was as a Massachusetts Climate Corps member. One of our first group gatherings was Professional Development Day, where I met the then-EFP cohort (Cohort Three). I remember sitting next to then Climate Education Fellow Uzoma Adichie (Zuzu), chatting, wanting to connect with anyone I could on one of my first days at the organization. That day was two years ago, and now I consider Zuzu one of my closest friends.   

One of the best aspects of the cohort experience is the opportunity to build meaningful, lasting relationships, both within your cohort and beyond. Zuzu has been more than just a friend to me—she’s also been a mentor and a constant cheerleader. This experience taught me that your coworkers can become your village if you let them. – Tami Gordon  

7. Advocate for what you want and need!   

If you want something, respectfully ask for it – the worst someone could say is no. And if there’s an issue, people might not know about it unless you speak up. – Hannah McGrath  

8. Connect with those in your field and community.   

Grab coffee with someone of professional interest at least once a month, whether they work in your field or not. Most people love to feel helpful, so give them a reason to share their advice and/or flag any career opportunities they come across. When people know your name, what you’ve done, and what you are passionate about, they are way more likely to think of you when opportunities arise in the future, even if it’s years after you’ve met. And remember, it’s just as important to connect with those within your workplace, so be friendly and say thank you often.  – Scarlett Gonzalez  

9.  For larger, long-term projects, break the work into small, manageable milestones over time.   

This tip has helped me maintain steady progress, build a sense of accomplishment, and reduce procrastination. I applied this approach while leading my professional project to support camps in implementing an ecological restoration curriculum. Although the project is happening this summer, much of the planning began last fall. Setting incremental milestones, such as drafting lesson materials, coordinating with camp staff, and piloting activities, allowed me to stay on track and avoid last-minute stress. This structure made the project feel more manageable and helped ensure consistent progress toward successful implementation. – Tiare Sierra Rivera 

10. Be bold. Start cold.  

When heading into the field on a brisk morning with fewer layers than the weather calls for, trust that you’ll warm up as you go. The same advice applies to starting a new job, working on an unfamiliar project, or navigating a major life transition. You can prepare as much as you’d like, but the only way to learn is by doing. For my professional project, I created a stewardship plan for a conservation property, a task I’d never done before, and it required me to build an entirely new skill set and learn how to read a forest. I met with ecologists and professors to refine my methodology, but in the end, I learned the most during the hours I spent attempting to identify trees and invasive species in the field.   

While I still misidentify species, I’ve improved drastically and developed tricks to guide myself. The best way to get better at adapting is to step out of your comfort zone and trust yourself to learn as you go. Each new challenge makes the next one a little less daunting. – Isabella Acosta–Jimenez 

Acknowledgements 

We sincerely thank our supervisors, Andrea Jerabek, Sam Anderson, Brittany Gutermuth, George Durante, and Megan Gordon, for their mentorship, guidance, and support throughout this experience. 

We also extend a massive thank you to the DEIJA Team – Stephen Lin, Taylor Lo, and Nia Keith – for their strong belief in us as fellows and their commitment to strengthening this program.   

Finally, we thank Mass Audubon for making this fellowship experience possible.  

By Isabella Acosta-Jimenez, Land Conservation Fellow 

If you’ve ever looked at property lines on a map, it’s easy to forget that nature doesn’t recognize those boundaries. Deer bound over stone walls. Seeds travel on the wind. Brooks flow downhill. Invasive species spread wherever they can. The invisible lines between two points on the ground are there to show humans who “owns” what, but they mean little to the ecological systems that move freely across them.

I encounter this tension daily in my work protecting priority habitats alongside private landowners, municipalities, and conservation organizations. A stone wall may divide two parcels, one that is part of a wildlife sanctuary with an ecological management plan, and the other privately managed, but buckthorn, beech leaf disease, and deer pressure permeate both. (“Parcels” are individual units of land ownership, and neighboring properties that share a boundary are referred to as abutting.)

We use mechanisms such as conservation restrictions (CR), legal agreements that permanently limit development on privately-owned land, to protect properties neighboring Mass Audubon sanctuaries. These conserved parcels often function as buffers to our sanctuaries, despite often being managed separately or not at all.

When I began my work as the Land Conservation Fellow, I saw protection itself as the goal: secure the land, monitor the boundary, conserve what’s inside. Over time, I’ve come to see how incomplete that approach is. Rather than treating protected parcels as isolated units, we must manage habitats continuously across privately owned protected land and abutting Mass Audubon-owned properties.

My professional project aims to bridge that divide by coordinating stewardship plans across property lines, engaging landowners in shared management strategies, and collaborating with university students and experienced volunteers on field-based projects to assess habitat vulnerabilities across boundaries.

It also extends beyond the field. At a Student Research Summit this May, students from UMass Amherst and Westfield State presented their findings, turning site-specific observations into a broader conversation about landscape-scale stewardship. Collaborators, including students, conservation practitioners, educators, and landowners, came together and, through listening and engagement, we explored methods to evaluate climate resilience, identify and quantify vulnerabilities, and develop adaptive management plans that reflect how ecological systems function on the ground, beyond boundary lines drawn on paper.

Managing by habitat rather than boundary recognizes ecological continuity, and it plays out visibly on the ground. For example, an ash tree grows on a slope above a meandering brook that serves as a parcel boundary. On one side, the land is a sanctuary; on the other, it is privately managed—yet the system functions as one. One year, a regional drought strikes, and the soils dry across the entire slope. Deer move freely between properties, traversing the slope and compacting earth, accelerating erosion on both sides. Roots become exposed, and the tree weakens—along with all the ashes around it. The emerald ash borer arrives, thriving in this landscape-scale stress. Within years, the ash trees are gone—not just from a single parcel, but from the connected system.

During a conversation with a conservation restriction landowner distressed by the loss of ash, beech, and hemlock on her property, I realized how widespread these issues are. When I shared Mass Audubon’s approach—that these species are unlikely to return at scale, and stewardship now requires adaptation rather than restoration—she was stunned. Protection, she realized, was no longer a guarantee of ecosystem stability.

She’s not the only landowner grappling with this reality. In a recent Mass Audubon survey, CR deedholders list their top concerns as invasive species management, trail maintenance, and wildlife habitat stewardship. Many are navigating public access and ecological care without the technical capacity or resources to address the threats that move freely across property lines onto their land. They aren’t asking to relinquish their ownership. They’re asking for partnership.

Large conservation organizations, while often stretched thin, hold a broader regional perspective, along with technical expertise, volunteer networks, and access to funding that individual landowners don’t have on their own. My work sits at that intersection: connecting landowners to support, aligning stewardship across boundaries, and treating ecological care as a shared responsibility rather than an individual burden.

This isn’t defeatism. It’s a recalibration. Rather than insisting on restoration to a fixed past, it asks what can function under changing conditions—and where human intervention can meaningfully slow loss without promising permanence. The Rights of Nature framework challenges us to see the land as a living system with inherent value beyond property.

Stewardship, then, isn’t about control but responsibility to support ecological processes that predate and will outlast us. The work ahead isn’t about drawing harder lines; it’s about caring for what moves across them.

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Isabella Acosta-Jimenez (she/her) is originally from New Jersey, where her passion for the outdoors grew from exploring trails and open space. She earned a B.S. in Environmental Studies with honors and a minor in Anthropology from Davidson College in 2024.  

At Davidson, Isabella led affinity trips for students of color through Davidson Outdoors and completed an honors capstone using geoarchaeological methods to reconstruct the environmental history of an ancient agricultural site in Cyprus. After graduating, she au pair-ed in Italy, interned at an environmental policy think tank, and served as an instructor at the Cathleen Stone Island Outward Bound School. These experiences have shaped her commitment to scientifically grounded, inclusive, and community-driven conservation.  

Outside of work, Isabella enjoys reading, crafting, and exploring new places near and far.

By Tiare Sierra Rivera, Ecological Restoration Fellow 

Not too long ago, I stepped into a salt marsh for the first time.  It was a warm and sunny September day, and I was a senior at Boston University taking a class, “Estuaries and Nearshore Systems,” with Professor Sergio Fagherrazzi—a big name in the salt marsh world for his work on marsh morphodynamics during accelerated sea level rise. As part of the class, we headed out to Plum Island Sound, the largest estuarine ecosystem in New England, to collect elevation and sediment data. 

It was wonderful: the bright green grasses rolled toward the horizon, the deep blue of the ocean pushed in and out with this quiet-but-powerful rhythm, and then… the smell. A strong, putrid, decomposing peat-meets-salt smell. And yet, paired with the stunning scene and fascinating science at hand, I loved it. By the time I got home, my camera roll had 40 new photos—horseshoe crabs, mud patterns, pickleweed, everything. I had never seen a salt marsh before, since we don’t have them back home in Puerto Rico. Maybe that’s why it felt so magical. But I also couldn’t help thinking: How have I lived in Boston for three years and no one has ever mentioned these places to me? 

On the last day of the class, Professor Fagherrazzi awarded me the “Crab Award,” given to the student who had the most fun (and was the most clumsy) on our field work trips out at Plum Island. Fast forward to today, a little over two years later, and the biggest project of my fellowship with Mass Audubon’s Ecological Restoration team has been, fittingly, the Salt Marsh Framework.  

Mass Audubon’s Senior Coastal Ecologist Sara Grady has been dreaming about this project since 2024. When I joined the Ecological Restoration team in June 2025, she told me about her idea of mapping all salt marshes in the state and gathering multiple datasets to visualize information on the present and future of salt marshes in Massachusetts. She then hoped to use that data to roll out statewide management and restoration recommendations to local governments, organizations, and scientists interested in restoration. 305 hours of work later, from October 2025 to April 2026, the Salt Marsh Framework is now doing just that.  

Today, the Salt Marsh Framework is a GIS-based model that scores marshes across three dimensions: Condition (looking at vegetation health and surrounding land use); Trajectory (accounting for tidal position, elevation gain, marsh-edge exposure); and Migration (assessing potential opportunities for salt marsh landward movement as sea level rises). These scores connect directly to restoration and management actions, helping users understand both the urgency and the restoration potential. The framework includes extra “lenses” like marsh size, blue carbon value, and bird habitat importance so anyone—from academics and students to researchers and consultants to conservationists and other scientists—can tailor decisions to their ecological goals. The version 1 Map Viewer product is now available for anyone curious about the state of Massachusetts salt marshes.  

Working on this project opened a huge door for me: I was recently accepted into the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography to pursue a Master of Science in Marine Geology. Starting in September, I’ll be researching salt marsh resilience and migration across Northeast National Parks, from Assateague Island in Virginia all the way up to Acadia in Maine. Whether it is analyzing data or getting muddy out in the salt marsh, I’m excited for another opportunity to get to know these ecosystems a little better—both for my own pleasure and for a future full of healthy salt marshes. 

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Tiare Sierra Rivera (she/her) grew up in Puerto Rico. She graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in Earth and Environmental Science, concentrating in GIS and remote sensing, and minoring in marine science. While at BU, she was a student-athlete on the sailing team, earning MVP honors two years in a row.  

Tiare’s environmental journey includes two summer internships in climate resiliency and environmental permitting, as well as a transformative summer experience conducting scientific diving research in Mozambique. During the academic year, she taught an accredited sailing course to fellow college students and served as a teaching assistant for an introductory environmental science class. 

By Tami Gordon, Nature in the City Fellow

As the Nature in the City (NITC) Fellow with Mass Audubon, I recently attended the Hope Summit in Charleston, South Carolina, a gathering that brought coastal and inland communities together to explore how land, water, and people are interconnected. Mornings were filled with workshops led by city planners, non-profit founders, early-career and seasoned professionals. Our afternoons were spent walking the city, learning through observation and experience. (Who knew that falling down the stairs on your first day is a great way to get people to talk to you?)   

The Summit’s focus on community resilience, climate preparedness, and equity reflects the foundation of the NITC program: meaningful engagement, co-governance, and place-based solutions. The central theme of hope reminded me that climate work is most powerful when it is rooted in collective stories and communal, hands-on experiences.   

A workshop titled Re-Story-Ation emphasized “Experience > Explanation,” reminding us that people are moved less by data than by what they can feel, touch, and witness firsthand. Effective environmental storytelling invites emotional and embodied understanding, making space for community voices that hold both memory and expertise.  

This raised key questions: Where does local knowledge—like shared memories of unofficial community landmarks or a farmer’s multi-generational expertise—fit alongside technical expertise, like standardized historical and landmark processes and agricultural policy? And in the American South especially, how does cultural incompetency limit ecological understanding? 

Inside the Charleston Museum, a painting of a Confederate flag hung over our conference room. Romanticizing slavery like this implies that some lives (and some lands) hold less value, a hierarchy that still shapes environmental inequities today. When land is treated as expendable, the people closest to it (often Black and Indigenous communities) are treated as expendable too.   

At the Summit, I learned that across the South, many plantations have been converted into wildlife sanctuaries. We explored how this sort of interpretation of historical land use often prioritizes scenery over the lives of enslaved people who shaped those landscapes. This is why climate justice cannot be separated from racial justice; cultural competency in resilience planning requires acknowledging historical harm, and development—even towards something “good” like a wildlife sanctuary—that ignores community history, like slavery, risks repeating cycles of exclusion.  

My time in South Carolina affirmed that my professional project—a key part of the Early Career Fellowship experience—must center cultural inclusivity, belonging, and place activation. Storytelling and embodied practices like dance, humor, ritual, being with the land are all powerful tools that help us face climate grief and reconnect with one another.  

People are not the problem—disconnection is. And reconnection begins with stories that make change feel possible. My upcoming study will discern how to embed cultural development into place-making by studying the lived experiences community members have with open spaces. Through this work, I hope to further the ways we all show up for racial justice, for our neighborhoods, and for the urban landscapes we share, so our cities can become places where everyone knows they belong.  

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Tami Gordon (they/them/theirs) is the Nature in the City Fellow for Cohort 4 (2025-2026). Tami works with the Nature in the City program staff and provides support to both the Boston Tree Alliance and Broadmeadow Brook. A recent graduate from Boston University’s Earth and Environmental Sciences program, Tami has been a lover of the environment since they were a child growing up with the stories of their Jamaican and Trinidadian household. When they’re not at work, you can find them making music, birding, or writing. 

By Isabella Acosta-Jimenez, Land Conservation Fellow

I used to think land protection was simple. At its core, I thought it meant safeguarding forests and wetlands from development. “Protection in perpetuity” sounded abstract until I joined Mass Audubon as this year’s Land Conservation Fellow, and I realized all that goes into it. Due diligence, legal agreements, and partnerships only lay the foundation, but conservation doesn’t end there. It’s a puzzle.  

It starts with people like me piecing together the “border” of the bigger land conservation puzzle—playing land detective and searching for opportunities to connect open space, parcel by parcel, story by story. Logistics and an interdisciplinary blend of fundraising, education, conservation science, and more all work in harmony to ensure land remains conserved and stewarded for generations. 

One way I do this is through participating in the Nashua Land and Waters Regional Conservation Partnership (RCP)—a powerhouse group of women who meet monthly to talk strategy. This partnership reinforces the idea that conservation is a collaborative and deeply community-based endeavor: conservation cannot happen if people don’t care. We ask: What does the local community want to protect? How do we meet landowners where they are, balancing their expectations while ensuring their land is conserved? And once it’s protected, how does the community want to engage with it?  

Through Mass Audubon’s 30×30 Catalyst Fund, seeded by MathWorks, we help smaller land trusts launch projects that reflect these priorities. Mass Audubon brings funding, expertise, and a spirit of collaboration to the table as we support organizations that work with community leaders and landowners to identify and elevate significant conservation opportunities.  

Recently, I visited a potential Conservation Restriction (CR) site in Springfield, an urban five-acre parcel that, frankly, was a bit grim: litter everywhere, blankets of invasive plants, spotted lanternflies sucking life out of trees, and signs of abandoned unhoused encampments. For the visit, folks came together from all corners: land protection specialists, the director of Mass Audubon’s Nature in the City program, city officials, and educators from both Mass Audubon and the National Park Service.  

Beforehand, I created maps to help us situate ourselves and understand the site’s larger context. As we walked the property and the surrounding area, we began reading the land and imagining its next chapter. What if the site could connect a nearby school to the adjacent protected space, allowing students to walk from their classrooms into greenspace and a restored wetland, where they could learn with and from nature? It’s just five acres, but it’s another puzzle piece—one that helps stitch together fragmented open space in Springfield.  

Land conservation often comes down to legal documents, title reviews, and GIS layouts. But it’s also standing in the field, imagining what nature could be and the impact that a relationship with nature could have. This cannot happen without site visits like the one in Springfield, which unite community voices on the ground and carve a path for land protection, management and engagement, once the land is secured.  

Conservation means aligning priorities, securing funding, and weaving partnerships to work towards a completed puzzle: finalized land projects. Every deed I review and every site I visit in this role reminds me that conservation is a puzzle—and I’m proud to be part of the team putting the pieces together. 

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Isabella Acosta-Jimenez (she/her) is originally from New Jersey, where her passion for the outdoors grew from exploring trails and open space. She earned a B.S. in Environmental Studies with honors and a minor in Anthropology from Davidson College in 2024.  

In college, Isabella led affinity trips for students of color as part of Davidson Outdoors and completed an honors capstone applying geoarchaeological methods to reconstruct the environmental history of an ancient agricultural site in Cyprus. After graduating, she worked as an au pair in Italy, as an intern at an environmental policy think tank, and as an instructor at the Cathleen Stone Island Outward Bound School. These experiences have shaped her commitment to scientifically grounded, inclusive, and community-driven conservation.  

Outside of work, Isabella enjoys reading and exploring new places, near and far.