A legacy of logging, damming, road construction, and channel straightening has destabilized stream banks across the Adirondacks. These changes impair rivers’ natural ability to flow and manage sediment. This not only worsens flooding hazards and water quality but also threatens infrastructure and sensitive riparian habitats. Riparian habitats are the woody, vegetated zones that anchor riverbanks and support biodiversity.
The Ausable Conservation Nursery (ACN), a program launched in 2024 by the Ausable Freshwater Center (AFC), a 501(c)3 non-profit, addresses these issues throughout the Ausable River watershed. The nursery cultivates hardy, hyperlocal native riparian tree and shrub species- such as paper birch, red maple, shrub willow, and quaking aspen- using wild-collected seeds and cuttings. ACN’s commitment to collecting hyperlocal seeds and cuttings from the region is vital to the success of their restoration projects.
“Plant provenance,” which is the specific geographic origin of where a plant or its seeds were collected, determines how a particular plant population will develop the genetic adaptations necessary to accommodate local environmental conditions. Over time, plants of the same species from different areas may develop unique genetic traits that allow them to thrive in localized conditions like soil types, elevations, temperature variations, and pest pressures. At AFC, cultivating plants from the correct provenance helps assure the genetic integrity of their plant stock- they are elevation hardy and acclimated to the harsh Adirondack winters. After a lengthy process of propagating cuttings, cultivating wild seeds, and placing saplings in a production field, large and competitive plant stocks are transplanted by AFC staff along degraded stream banks. This fortifies and anchors soils, slowing erosion and reconnecting fragmented habitats.
As a 2025 summer fellow with AFC, I contributed to nursery and restoration projects through seed collection, propagation, irrigation installation, assisting with volunteer days, and preparing for large-scale transplanting into a production field. I also designed an informal assessment to provide AFC with data about more efficient restoration methods. Considering the traditional method of cultivating and transplanting greenhouse stocks is quite time, labor, and cost intensive, AFC recently opened up a conversation about a direct seeding approach. With a direct seeding method, native seeds are broadcast directly onto stream banks. This reduces time and labor, and can offer a cost-effective, scalable alternative.
Direct-sown species also develop stronger, undisturbed root systems, increasing their resilience and eliminating the risk of transplant shock for larger plant stocks. I conducted an informal germination trial on two restoration sites on the East Branch Ausable River to evaluate which native species and substrates yielded the best results under a direct seeding approach. I compared seed germination across eight transects using a variety of native plant species- shrub willow, red maple, paper birch, and a custom ACN seed mix- across different soil media treatments of peat moss, vermiculite, and sand. My preliminary findings demonstrate that paper birch seeds paired with peat moss had the highest germination rate. This is a promising species-media combination and could inform scaling direct seeding in future AFC projects. However, while direct seeding reduces labor and cost, further monitoring is required to assess whether seedlings can establish robustly enough to replace larger, more competitive transplanted nursery stock.
I’ve grown and learned a lot this summer- on a practical level, but also on a poetic one, too. Conducting research and spending my days with dirt perpetually under my fingernails resonated with my curriculum as an Environmental Studies major. It reaffirmed the humanities-driven, multidisciplinary nature of the major: how environmental work isn’t just empirical, but is also shaped by philosophies, ethics and an array of perspectives. Working at a non-profit has made me realize just how powerful stories are. It’s not just facts that win arguments or mobilize donors and activism- it’s the shared experiences, values, and emotional connections that stories carry. Stories give meaning to data; they translate numbers into lived impact. When people can see themselves, their community, or their future reflected in a narrative, they’re more likely to care, to act, and to support. At the heart of effective environmental work is the ability to connect people not just to problems, but to each other- and story is how we do that.
Working with native plants also complemented my Native American Studies minor. Many Indigenous communities, though not all, have deeply intimate, relational, and reciprocal understandings of the natural world. Nature is in many ways a teacher, making ecology not just an environmental concept, but a social and cultural one. This philosophy is in some ways reflected in AFC’s approach to restoration. Unlike many restoration projects in the U.S. that over-engineer solutions and risk further destabilizing ecosystems, AFC looks to nature as a guide. They let intact, healthy ecosystems inform their restoration designs. Instead of imposing fixes, they ask: how has nature historically solved the problems we’re trying to address? Then they spend months gathering data on species of interest that shape riparian habitats-observing their abundance, resilience, and community structures- to design interventions that restore function, not just form.
Finally, on a personal note, I can barely begin to articulate how grateful I am to have lived and worked alongside such a brilliant, vibrant community- one that sees beauty where I do. Sometimes, caring deeply about the environment feels in conflict with the framework of our social systems. To recognize the land as something with intrinsic value can not only feel demoralizing, but isolating, especially when the environment is facing assaults on multiple fronts. Aldo Leopold says aptly, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” But this summer, I feel very lucky to have found solidarity and comfort in a community of such brave, mission-driven, ferociously compassionate stewards of nature. It gives me a lot of hope. — Sophie Sujo ’27