ISSUE #8 • AUTUMN 2025
From the
Ground Up
Conversations about conservation, climate, and communities in New England.
BASED ON A PHOTO BY GORDON MILLER - VIEW THE FULL IMAGEWelcome to the Autumn 2025 Issue
As wildfire smoke drifts over New England, we face the realities of climate change together—and together we can shape the response.
This issue celebrates the strength of community—to care for the land, for one another, and for the future we share.
This spring, I returned home for the first time in seven years.
It’s interesting how that word, “home,” can take on a multiplicity of meanings as we move through different phases of life. Many of us collect homes along the way, like we collect family mementos and treasures and then box them in the attic, their meaning preserved but out of sight.
There is the home where I was born: Omaha, Nebraska. The home where I lived from ages 1 to 3: on Sandhills Prairie in Western Nebraska, a place that lives like legend in family stories. The home where I live now: Central Vermont.
FEATURE • ISSUE 8
Communities and Land
Working Together Toward a Shared Vision
By David Foster
The inaugural issue of From the Ground Up articulated the core vision of Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities: To address the three crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequity in human well-being that face New England and the globe, we need an integrated approach that simultaneously protects natural systems; stewards our food- and resource-producing lands well; and builds and supports resilient communities of people, place, and structure.
FEATURE • ISSUE 8
A Triple Win for Rural New England
Ample Housing, Thriving Forests, and a Healthy Economy
By Brian Donahue
Conservation land trusts have always been devoted to saving land from development. But because some development is inevitable (and often desirable), carefully shaping and guiding it can help determine the long-term success of conservation. One guiding principle is to cluster human infrastructure at every scale—the region, the town, the individual property—so that in the end, more open space can be protected. This is a key component of what is commonly called “smart growth.”
Like the spine of some giant creature slowly unfurling its vertebrae as it emerges from the depths of an ancient sea, Darling Ridge arches steadily between the East and West Branches of the Passumpsic River in Lyndon and Burke, Vermont. At its 1,250’ apex, the ridge, traced by the windswept and gorgeous Darling Hill Road, rises 500 feet above the rocky, winding rivers, which merge at its southern terminus. Its flanks, formed of a gritty, calcium-rich bedrock beneath glacier-deposited sand, extend to the rivers’ floodplains via a series of terraces, swales, hushed slopes of rich hardwood forest, and sandy-bottomed ravines. Groundwater emerges in quiet seeps, gentle hollows hold shady forested wetlands, and old river meanders lie carved in subtle sweeps across the Passumpsic valley bottoms.
In the face of increasing social isolation and division, public lands provide a special opportunity to build true in-person connections with strangers, acquaintances, and neighbors alike. Land connects us.
Across the country, the power of land as a community-building tool can be felt in public lands of all sizes, from the smallest town green space to the most dramatic blue-sky landscape. In New England, the pinnacle of this remarkable dynamic is seen most clearly in the rich and ongoing heritage of our community forests.
The simple definition of community forests is that they are owned, stewarded, and used by the community, for the community.
Conversations
Power from the Sun
Hope in a Shattered World
by Bill McKibben
It has been the most brutal six months for the American landscape in the history of the Republic.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration—composed largely of people who spent their lives “extracting resources” or lobbying to make that extraction easier—has managed to undo a great deal of the hard work of generations of environmentalists. They have undone the roadless rule, which dates back to the Clinton administration, and they have mandated steep increases in the cut on national forests—the newly passed budget bill will double the timber harvest over the next nine years, taking us back to 1990 levels. They’ve gone to work rescinding habitat protection for endangered species, and they’ve opened up millions of acres in Alaska to drilling and mining.
Reflections
Milk, Eggs, Bread
A poem by Neil Shepard
(from The Book of Failures)
I keep thinking of John Sullivan,
not the famous John L. Sullivan
in Sullivan’s Travels, who
made film’s first tragic
comedy, nor the famous
boxer, John L. Sullivan, the world’s
first heavyweight champion,
nor the scarcely less famous
John L. Sullivan, the boxing
elephant with Barnum & Bailey.
husk cherry
A poem by Catherine Menyhart
don’t be deceived
by the paper-thin drapes:
sepia stained,
edges tattered
within the humble husk
lies nourishment,
and something possible
Policy Desk
New England Policy Chronicle
Updates from Around the Region
by Alex Redfield
As students across New England return to school this fall, more than a few middle school math teachers will be teaching their classes how to solve for a single variable. In a simple equation with a few known constants, you should be able to find the value of “x” to make a formula work. Applying a similarly linear approach of working to solve for a single variable in land-use policy, however tempting, would almost certainly fail to meet our diverse and overlapping needs in planning for a resilient landscape that supports the lives of all—humans, plants, and animals—who live there. If we try to build as many possible units of housing as quickly as possible, for example, but fail to consider how that housing boom could impact or be impacted by transportation capacity, energy infrastructure, ecosystem integrity, or farm viability, we may cause more problems than we solve.
Conservation in Action
The Hidden World of Boston’s Food Forests
by Hope Kelley
It’s a Saturday morning in July and you’ve stepped out the front door of your Jones Hill apartment building and onto the sidewalk. Looking out over a sunny Dorchester street, you see a woman walking her dog, a kid on a scooter, and a man pushing a baby carriage while chatting on the phone. It’s early yet, but you can feel the heat pressing down on the city, radiating back up at you from the dark and impermeable pavement.
You’ve nowhere to be (blessedly) for another few hours, so you stroll down the street with no direction in mind, turning on this road or that, and seeing where it takes you. As you turn the corner on Everett Avenue and walk down the hill, you begin to hear voices up ahead on the left, faint laughter ringing out from someplace unseen. As you draw nearer, you see a break in the buildings. Greenery spills out.
Street Trees in Coastal Connecticut
How Four Communities are Preserving Nature and Protecting Against Climate Change
by Nadine Canter
The poet Gary Snyder is quoted as saying, “Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.” Snyder’s sentiment aptly describes four communities along the Connecticut shoreline whose residents are making more space for Nature in their hometowns. Volunteers in the City of New London, as well as the Towns of Essex, Madison, and Old Saybrook, are at various stages of increasing the number and resilience of trees. They all share a common goal: strengthen the health and wellbeing of their human communities by cultivating and caring for “tree communities” in response to the climate change, public health, and biodiversity crises.
Ten Towns Together
Collaborative Capacity Building in Maine
by Dayea Shim
It is easy to believe that your town is so special and unique that no one “from away” could ever understand what your community is going through or offer strategies that will work in your particular context. But the truth is, most small towns in our region have a lot in common. Somewhere else in rural New England, another community is wrestling with the same headaches: housing shortages, crumbling infrastructure, struggling shops, or declining civic engagement. And, chances are, some other community has already stumbled onto at least part of the answer you might need.
Wouldn’t it be something if towns could connect, share their success stories, learn from each other’s missteps, and spark new ideas together?
Want to join the conversation?
We invite your questions, reactions, debates, suggestions, and contributions. Our editorial team is committed to expanding the chorus of voices needed to safeguard the health, resiliency, and vibrancy of New England’s communities—both human and wild.
Read, Watch, Listen
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Conservation Easements: Connecting Land, People, and Ideas Through Time
Northern Woodlands
Read: Allaire Diamond, who writes in this issue about Kingdom Trails, offers a primer on conservation easements that spells out what they are, how they work, their permanency or lack thereof, and their immense variability. This is a must-read for anyone interested in land conservation.
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Tracing The Epic Journey Of Europe’s Most Famous Wolf With Adam Weymouth
Rewilding Earth Podcast
Listen: Adam Weymouth, whose new book Lone Wolf is reviewed here, speaks about his motivation for making the journey that led to the book. This interview introduces you to the complexities surrounding wolves and describes his walk from Slovenia to the Italian Alps—a moving story to hear in his own voice.
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The Poem of the World: Scudder Parker in Verse and Service
Northern Woodlands
Read: Northern Woodlands interviews Scudder Parker, whose poem Moose Bog appears in Issue #7. Parker has led a varied and interesting life, navigating public spaces from the preacher’s pulpit to a gubernatorial race. He talks about what has inspired his writing since childhood: “The fields, the woods, the streams overwhelmed me with companionship,” and offers advice to new and aspiring writers.
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Forever-Wild Preserves
Northeast Wilderness Trust
Watch: Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT) has created 22 short (2–3 minute) videos on many of its Forever-Wild Preserves, with stunning photography and cinematography that brings us right into these beautiful places—with music and bird song but almost no human voices.
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Where Does the Climate Movement Go From Here?
Heated: A podcast for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis.
Listen: Bill McKibben talks with Emily Atkin about the way forward for the climate crisis—that sources of free energy, sun and wind, can now be harvested cheaply, and the power stored for later use. He encourages us to move forward on solar power, and with that is promoting Sun Day on September 21.
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Pathways to an Ecologically Connected Transborder Landscape
Staying Connected Initiative
Read: This new guide provides a distillation of key strategies to advance ecological connectivity, conservation, and restoration from the first-ever Northeastern North America/Turtle Island Landscape Connectivity Summit, held in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke, Québec, Canada, in June 2024. Indigenous knowledge and ways of seeing are highlighted as critical to success.
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Old-Growth Forests with Bob Leverett
Friends of Mohawk Trail State Forest
Watch: This as-yet untitled film follows the journey of Bob Leverett and his colleagues as they rediscover old-growth forests in Massachusetts and examine how these old forests enrich our lives. As Bob says, “They are living history—a living, breathing, changing ecosystem with continuity into the distant past. Isn’t that important?”
The Bookshelf
Essential reading from our editors and contributors.
ARTWORK BY JACO TAYLORBulletin Board
Events, updates, and announcements from our partners and friends from around the region.
NOTE FROM OUR EDITORS
Climate change, environmental degradation, and the global loss of biodiversity aren’t just one-time crises—they’re daily threats to human well-being and to all life on Earth. Tackling them demands a bold, integrated approach to conservation, bridging forests, farms, fisheries, freshwater and marine systems, communities, and industries across New England.
Each season, we share stories, essays, in-depth reporting, interviews, art, photography, and poetry that showcase the diverse voices of individuals who exemplify the promise of the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision—offering hope and momentum for positive change.
Our goal is to inspire action for policies and practices that safeguard New England’s land and water for all who make their home here.
If you’re new to From the Ground Up, we encourage you to read “An Integrated Approach to New England Conservation and Community” by Brian Donahue.