*MASS AUDUBON TIDMARSH WILDLIFE SANCTUARY | Primary Case

Plymouth, MA
Massachusetts Audubon Society, MIT Media Lab Responsive Environments Group

Mass Audubon Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary operated as a cranberry farm for a century. Today, the marsh is home to recreational paths as part of the Audubon Society, as well as the MIT Media Lab Living Observatory led by Gloriana Schulman, who purchased the property using legislation from a 1988 farm that bill that creates incentives to preserve and restore wetlands on former farmland. These federal programs provided $3 million, with additional funding coming from the sale of the property to Mass Audubon after the restoration was complete. The cost of the project was estimated to be $13,600 per acre, which creates a working estimate for farmers looking to undertake the restoration process on their own land. The project involved the removal of seven earthen dams and the restoration of wetlands across the bog, as well as placing 3,000 logs as part of the stream channel restoration, laying trails and paths for visitors to engage in birdwatching, adding thousands of tons of sediment to restore the flow of water across the site, and installing a culvert to reconnect the hydrology to the larger Beaver Dam Brook watershed. Microtophographical interventions were engineered using “pit and mound” designs to encourage the diversification of flora and fauna to build resilient habitats. The project currently functions as a sensory landscape providing data for various projects through MIT, as well as open-source landscape investigations. To date, it is the largest freshwater ecological restoration project completed in the Northeast.

149 feet above sea level

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