Stewardship in an Age of Warming: How Natural Areas Can Mitigate & Aid in Climate Adaptation 

The 2025-26 Fellows expanded the conversation around using natural areas to mitigate the effects of climate change using Carse Wetlands as a model. Some major themes of their work are highlighted below.

Trails, Recreation, & Mental Health
This year's fellows assessed the results from a Carse Wetlands visitation survey created by the 2024-25 cohort. By contextualizing these results with the literature of natural areas, mental health, and sense of place, the fellows initiated a conversation around accessibility and human use in Carse Wetlands.

Honeysuckle, Invasive Species, & Public Health
Expanding on a multi-year experiment involving honeysuckle removal, this year's fellows explored the effectiveness of replacing invasive honeysuckle with red osier dogwood for longterm habitat restoration. Read more about the original project here.

Pollinators, Biodiversity, & Ecosystem Functions
​Utilizing pollinator scorecard data collected by the 2024 Summer Stewards and 2025 Summer Stewards, this year's fellows explored ideas of how to better support pollinators in Carse Wetlands. Read more about our work with pollinators here.

2025-26 Cohort at the Winter Retreat in January

Woodland Diversification & Assisted Migration
Inspired by FREC's previous work in red maple regeneration, this year's fellows decided to assess the overstory composition of Carse Wetlands and research the ecological tolerances of Vermont tree species. Using this information, the fellows explored potential ways practitioners can execute assisted migration of native tree species.

Carse as a Wetland Ecosystem
This year's fellows explored the hydraulic land use history of Carse, and they opened the conversation about the roles of wetlands in offsetting the impacts of climate change.

Carse Wetlands in 1963, 1993, 2004, & 2025 (left to right)

The 2025-26 fellows are Ella Barter, Rachel Bastian, Zack Civerolo, Joseph Donerkiel, Stella Dooley, Maeve Fairfax, Molly Farwell, Falon Forrest, Eva Goodwin, Kerry Gunther, Grace Kaufman, Caelah Kennedy, Colin Lemmon, Maeve Levitt, Renata Lucchesi Kadri, Yael Michaeli, Asher Mickelson, Kourtney Most, Miles Pahl, and Sam Van Hoy. The 2025-26 undergraduate TAs are former fellows Catherine Pope, Gracelyn O’Connor, Chloe Moskowitz, and Emily Donovan​.