Power of Place | Audubon

Each summer time, I return with my household and my siblings’ households to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It’s a place we all know by coronary heart—the place we spend per week residing merely, in nature, surrounded by forests and water. Mornings start with the decision of a Frequent Loon echoing throughout the water—at all times the primary sound I pay attention for. Later within the day, the drumming of a Pileated Woodpecker would possibly carry by means of the bushes. It’s a place that jogs my memory how a lot birds belong to the locations that form them—and the way a lot we do, too.

It’s not a distant wilderness or a protected refuge. However it’s a place that holds reminiscence, that means, and connection. And it reinforces the urgency of defending locations prefer it throughout the hemisphere—as a result of after we shield a spot, we’re defending all of the life it sustains.

At Audubon, our mission is to guard birds and the locations they want, in the present day and tomorrow. I take into consideration that day by day—and I typically discover myself coming again to “the locations.” As a result of it’s within the speci­ficity of place—coastal dunes, wide-open grasslands, distant tundra—that our work turns into actual. Birds don’t exist within the summary. They want intact marshes to feed their younger, tree cover to cover their nests, open skies to comply with the maps etched into their DNA.

This concern consists of tales about a few of these locations: a stretch of shoreline alongside the Nice Lakes the place Piping Plovers are making a comeback; a distant nook of Oklahoma the place eagle feathers are protected with reverence; a fragile Arctic panorama that, if misplaced, could never be reclaimed. These locations are as different because the species that depend upon them. But they share a elementary reality: Conservation is grounded in science, within the earth beneath our toes, within the waters that maintain life, and within the individuals who care sufficient to guard them.

As Audubon celebrates its a hundred and twentieth anniversary, every of those landscapes reminds us how a lot hangs within the steadiness. One storm can wash away a nesting colony. One shortsighted determination can erase a habitat that took centuries to kind. These moments of loss are actual—and infrequently they’re irreversible. That’s the reason we do that work. As a result of we nonetheless have an opportunity to carry on to what issues. To guard what can’t be changed.

And after we succeed—after we put aside a refuge, restore a wetland, or deliver a species again from close to extinction—we aren’t simply saving birds. We’re safeguarding the locations that form our personal tales, too.

This piece initially ran within the Summer time 2025 concern because the Audubon View. To obtain our print journal, turn out to be a member by making a donation today.