Living Observatory (LO) is a public interest learning community founded in 2011 to complement the comprehensive stream and wetland restoration at Tidmarsh Farms. Incorporated in 2015 as a 501(c)3 non-profit-organization, LO holds the following mission, goals, and values: 

Mission

The mission of LO is to tell the long-term story of ecological wetland restorations on retired cranberry farms, and to advance scientific knowledge and public understanding of wetland ecology.

Goals

Build an interdisciplinary learning community of technologists, scientists, artists, educators, students, restoration experts and policy makers who are working on ecological restoration projects, measure long-term change in ecological function, and create experiences that invite the public to witness these changes. 

Develop metrics and methods that can be used to monitor, select, and evaluate the success of ecological restoration projects

Contribute to social, economic and scientific understanding of ecological restoration and human lifestyle choices, including the decisions by landowners as they take agricultural wetlands out of production.

Values

Learning - Every interaction - whether with the land, within a research community, or in a designed data-driven exploration space – provides a learning opportunity. At Living Observatory, project-based teams pursue explorations that advance our understanding of hydrology, stream ecology, soil science, environmental sensing, restoration practice and more. By generously sharing findings, LO’s collaborative community, individually and collectively, seek to improve restoration practice, answer pressing questions about how the land responds to restoration interventions, and improve public understanding of wetland ecology.

Collaboration - The greatest limit to knowledge is isolation. Living Observatory encourages collaborative learning across diverse disciplines, levels of expertise, communities, and institutions. LO develops shared learning moments that promote discussion, brainstorming, new ideas and collaborations. Through open sharing of information and ideas we seek to evolve our understanding of restoration ecology and find new ways to witness landscape-scale change.