As the days lengthen and we begin to notice buds unfurling into bright new leaves, glossy and gleaming like emeralds in the sunlight, Natural Neighbors is experiencing another kind of change. The people participating in our program are becoming more visible and connected. Not because Natural Neighbors has suddenly surged forth all at once, but because its steady, incremental growth is beginning to add up.
Natural Neighbors now connects hundreds of participants islandwide. Still, we do not operate as a single sweeping force. Our momentum comes from individual choices: people planting native species for the first time, removing invasive plants, or thoughtfully answering a question from a curious neighbor about what’s happening in their yard. This is how we are seeing change take place — through many small, personal choices.
Over the long, snowy winter, we had an opportunity to touch base with our participants to better understand their choices. Nearly 100 members of the Natural Neighbors community (400 strong) responded to a short survey, offering insight into their experiences. Combined with what we’ve observed through our partnerships and what we have learned from the other programs here at BiodiversityWorks, this feedback is helping us to evaluate where our effort is leading.
Here are some of the insights we gained.
Delivering Above and Beyond
Each Natural Neighbors site visit is meticulously prepared for in advance, and in many cases we already have a strong sense of what to expect before we arrive. Still, we make a point of addressing every question that an aspiring participant may ask us. If we don’t have an answer at the moment, we follow up with the information participants need. The most important thing to us is that we walk away from a visit with a person looking at their yard with new eyes, seeing it more as a part of nature than as a wall against it.
Our goal is to set every participant up for success and the results reflect that: 70% of participants reported that the program exceeded their expectations.
Growth Happens Where People Have Agency
Across the island, people are coming to us to help them improve habitat in the place where they have the most influence: their backyards. For participants in the Natural Neighbors program, a consistent pattern appears: once someone begins making ecological improvements, they tend to make more. One change leads to another, removing invasives, planting native plants, installing a water feature, then adding a nest box or a bat box.
When this pattern repeats itself over and over again from home to home, the results begin to take shape at a much larger scale. Collectively, participants’ land now represents more than 1,000 acres of land across Martha’s Vineyard.
I want to be careful about painting illusions here. Habitat loss and development pressures have not and will not disappear. Just take a drive around the island and I guarantee you will spot more than a few construction sites where new homes are being built or expanded upon. It is hard to escape the certainty that habitat fragmentation is our way of life.
But I will argue that something is changing, and that is how people are responding within the spaces over which they have control. One of the most recurring phrases I hear on all our Natural Neighbor site visits is, “I just want to do the right thing.” And that gives me hope. Over and over again, individuals are choosing the path of responsible land stewardship. And as these stewarded areas begin to connect, they will form broader networks of habitat across our communities.
This is the underlying vision of Natural Neighbors. While protected lands remain essential, they are often surrounded by too much fragmentation to fully sustain biodiversity on their own. These protected wild spaces have become islands bounded by a sea of development. Expanding habitat beyond those boundaries, into everyday spaces, “microhabitats” if you will (a term coined by Tom Chase of Village & Wilderness), is how we begin to address that gap.
These home microhabitats are what we call stepping stones. And stone by stone, each little personal rewilding project links with other projects to build something much larger.
Connection Drives the Movement Forward
Another strong takeaway from the survey was the role of personal relationships. Many participants said they would encourage others to take part in the Natural Neighbors program.
Though we try our best to get the word out ourselves, our growth isn’t driven primarily by formal campaigns. It spreads through example.
When people witness someone they know transforming a space, be it creating a pollinator patch, adding a nest box, or a installing a small pond with a fountain, and they witness the joy of someone relishing their time in that space, it reshapes expectations. A neighbor’s example or a friendly explanation often carries more weight than an article shared or a video watched.
These interactions build confidence and strengthen community ties. Creating habitat isn’t just environmental work; it’s also about rebuilding relationships between people and place. Every place is defined by its ecology. When people live in tune with nature, the place they live in retains the characteristics that make it unique. These are the characteristics that make you fall in love with a place. It’s when we lose touch with nature, when the tune becomes dissonant, that the place we love turns into Anywhere, USA, with cookie-cutter lawns and cloned hydrangeas. Same same same.
Where We’re Headed in 2026
We have seen where Natural Neighbors can be most effective moving forward. Our efforts have never been about directing the movement, but about strengthening and supporting it. We follow the example set by Tom Chase years ago when he first started the Vineyard Habitat Network and The Yard Map project with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Tom took lessons learned from those initiatives when he launched the Microhabitat Accelerator Program at Village and Wilderness, which he founded. We will continue to do so through our partnership with the Polly Hill Arboretum for our annual spring and fall native plant sales, with our winter nest box sales, and our community-driven Invasive Plant Brigade — and most importantly, through our site visits, where we connect with you.
Not a Natural Neighbor yet? If you would like to become a participant in our program, visit our website by clicking HERE, and we will help get you started on your journey! We will share our knowledge and resources at no cost to you and find many other ways for you to support all the biodiversity in your yard.
Are you already a Natural Neighbor and would like to pick our brains a little more for new ideas? We would love to see you again! You can sign up for a return visit by clicking HERE. If you do, and you have completed three of recommendations, we will award you with a free yard sign as seen in the Featured Image of this article!
A Moment for Gratitude
This work exists because of the people who care and generously support us. It exists due to people starting conversations and sharing ideas, and from people who have experimented and learned in their own spaces.
Much of this happens under the radar, thanklessly, and sometimes even under the skeptical eyes of neighbors who don’t know any better. But taken together, it is helping rebuild the ecological systems that support our true Natural Neighbors: bluebirds, monarch butterflies, spring peepers, box turtles and countless other species.
Beyond that, we are strengthening something less tangible, but just as important: the sense that people can work together to make room and care for nature in the places they inhabit.
Thank you to all our Natural Neighbors for being part of something that continues to grow. One yard at a time, we are restoring the resilient living systems that sustain an entire island and us all.
