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field station less than four miles from campus, a person could only enter the front gate if they navigated a then-outdated website and filled out a request form for a docent to supervise the visit.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.