Conservation

Our Conservation programs are at the core of our mission — connecting people to place through science, education and action. By employing both youth and adults to complete important environmental projects which benefit our human and natural communities, we invite folks from many backgrounds to invest their time in learning about and stewarding the earth.

Our goal is to be a place for folks to both discover an interest and hone their skills in practical, hands-on conservation work. For that reason, we hire folks from many backgrounds — some of our staff have degrees in environmental sciences, others come to us from varied career or academic experiences, and for most of our youth crews, NorthWoods is their first paid job. While a previous education in environmental fields is helpful for many of our positions, we are dedicated to providing employment to folks who are team players, hardworking, and have a passion for conservation, regardless of their previous qualifications.

We provide a thorough training period for our seasonal hires, including everything from general team leadership and conflict resolution to specialized position-specific skills training such as Game of Logging, Wilderness First Aid, tool use, herbicide application certification and more. Our goal is that our employees will end a season with us with the skills and experience they need to continue their professional careers, either in continued work with us or moving on to other opportunities in conservation.

Our Conservation Barn, completed in 2022, serves as the hub for all of our locally-based crews. The Barn provides comprehensive classroom and workshop space as well as tool and equipment storage. It is the nexus of all our conservation projects, whether training youth in the proper use of hand tools, maintaining forestry equipment, or prepping supplies for riparian plantings. Our 20km of trails on our 1200-acre campus and sites throughout our Spitzer Demonstration Forest provide the perfect outdoor classroom for putting hands-on conservation skills into action.

Join the team! Most of our seasonal hiring occurs in the winter and early spring, but rolling inquiries are welcome.

We partner with local state and federal agencies and other conservation non-profits to implement on-the-ground conservation restoration, trail building, forestry, and research projects that benefit the ecological health of our region.

Examples of past projects completed in our three decades of conservation work include:

• The building and maintenance of the remote 20-mile Kingdom Heritage Trail
• Technical stone work in the White Mountains including Crawford Notch Trail
• Developing and executing methodologies around native seed identification, documentation and collection.
• Implementing water quality best management practices on private, town and state lands, including:
  •  infiltration steps, encapsulated soil lifts, shoreline gardens, open-top culverts, riparian buffers, rain gardens, bioswales, and other practices designed to treat stormwater and improve water quality in surface waters
• Accessibility improvement (car-top boat access)
• Manual removal and treatment of invasive plants
• Stormwater runoff improvements
• Exotic plant control,
• Riparian forest buffer enhancement
• Process-based restoration implementation (beaver-dam analogs)
• Timber Stand Improvement
• Wildlife Habitat assessments