Reimagine The Wetlands Institute
The Power to Fulfill Our Mission for Decades To Come
Architect’s rendering of our proposed new building set within a beautifully landscaped campus reimagined to support stunning biodiversity and create habitat for plants and animals that call the campus home.
Rising seas are threatening The Wetland Institute’s sustainability and negatively impacting our campus and our work. At the same time, we’ve seen unprecedented growth in our research, education and visitor programs, but the age and size of our original building are holding us back.
That led us to Reimagine The Wetlands Institute with a state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility to support our work for the next 50 years, and a campus transformed into a living ecosystem.
Our Vision
For more than 50 years, the marsh has been our laboratory and our classroom, as well our reason for being. It’s also a natural treasure severely at risk. We’re reimagining The Wetlands Institute for today and for the future.
To reimagine The Wetlands Institute, we will:
Revitalize The Salt Marsh Trail
The Salt Marsh Trail is an integral part of the visitor experience and education programs, but it is flooding on average more than 65 times a year. We’ll elevate and widen it, while creating habitat for at-risk species and restoring five acres of marsh.
Transform our campus into a climate-resilient biodiverse ecosystem
We will create a campus of stunning biodiversity, using beautiful, climate-resistant native plants to establish a suite of habitats designed to maximize the benefit to wildlife.
Site map showing planned habitats and native planting areas.
Conceptual perspective of proposed building viewed from
The Salt Marsh Trail
Build a state-of-the-art sustainable facility
We will create a new gateway facility that connects visitors to the marsh and that dramatically enhances our resilience and sustainability, while paying homage to our original home.
Our plan for our new building:
Our Progress
The future is already taking shape
Restoration Success
Our most recent marsh restoration project on Scotch Bonnet Island, adjacent to our campus, is proving highly successful. Another project of the Seven Mile Island Innovation Lab, it is the result of a groundbreaking partnership↗ that is giving hope for wetlands threatened by rising seas.
Salt Marsh Trail Revitalization Funded& Construction to Begin in October 2026
We were awarded a grant to raise the elevation of the Salt Marsh Trail and to restore more than five acres of marsh.
Read our press release↗
Building Reconstruction Next
We’ve applied for permits to reconstruct the main building and revitalize the Salt Marsh Trail. We’re working with donors to secure the funding for construction.
Read our FAQs↗
To learn more about donor opportunities, please contact Elizabeth Hefner, ehefner@wetlandsinstitute.org.
Our Work
Deepening connections between people and nature
Since 1969, The Wetlands Institute has been raising appreciation, understanding, and stewardship of wetlands and coastal ecosystems through our programs in research, conservation, and education. Our campus and programs deepen connections between people and nature, transforming visitors and volunteers into thoughtful stewards of the natural world.
Responding to an urgent reality
Today, coastal wetlands face a new, critical threat unforeseen 50 years ago. Rising sea level, more frequent flooding, and increasingly stronger coastal storms threaten to damage these irreplaceable ecosystems. Sea level rise also threatens the Institute’s campus.
Carrying our work into the future
With the resources of our new campus, we’ll continue leading through innovation. Our world-class work delivers widely applicable solutions to the environmental challenges of today and those not yet imagined.
The Importance
From ecosystems to the economy, marshes are vital to life.
Healthy marshes:
- Host more biodiversity than rain forests
- Provide nurseries for fish and shellfish that represent 75% of our commercial fisheries
- Shelter endangered, protected, and at risk wildlife, including terrapins and coastal birds
- Protect our coastal communities from flooding and reduce damage from storm-driven waves
- Absorb and hold carbon from the atmosphere thereby helping to alleviate climate stress drivers
News & FAQS
News
The Wetlands Institute Takes Steps to Reimagine its Marsh Campus
The Wetlands Institute Invites Marsh Visits Before Summer Hours End
The Wetlands Institute Awarded Grant to Advance Coastal Resilience Through Marsh Restoration
Using Nature-based Solutions for Resilience and Wildlife (Winter 2025-2206 Newsletter)
Frequent flooding of The Salt Marsh Trail
Using the same nature-based approach proven successful in revitalizing the marsh on Scotch Bonnet Island, we will:
- Enhance the visitor and education experience
- Restore drowning marsh
- Increase native vegetation cover
- Create new high marsh and transitional upland habitat for diamondback terrapin nesting and at-risk coastal birds
- Increase protection from storm-driven waves, making the campus and surrounding marshes more resilient
Our plans for The Salt Marsh Trail:
Above left: The top pie chart, “2030,” illustrates the scenario if we do nothing, with the dark green showing drowned marsh. “Proposed” illustrates the impact of our proposed marsh restoration and new habitat creation. Above right: Map view of our restoration habitat plan.
The brown illustrates the clean dredge fill that will raise the trail and restore marsh, creating habitat for diamond back terrapin nesting.
By combining resilient architecture, native trees and plants, and innovative nature-based solutions, we will:
- Harmoniously integrate buildings, landscape, and sustainability
- Maximize the benefit for wildlife
- Establish a living model for thriving in a coastal zone
- Give visitors a deeper connection to nature
Some of our planting plans for the campus ecosystem:
Examples of the planting palettes for the reimagined campus showing native species that are beneficial to wildlife.
Using sustainable building methods, including mass timber construction, we will reconstruct our new home to support research, conservation, and education programs into the future with:
- Expanded indoor and outdoor classroom space to increase our education program capacity.
- Modern, fully equipped labs with more than double the space to support our scientists in solving the complex problems of today and the future.
- Welcoming spaces, outdoor decks, an enlarged aquarium, and new exhibits that will transport visitors into a journey of exploration.
Our plans for new building:
Views from the building and its deck invite visitors into the natural world.
The new building will be fully ADA-compliant and designed to meet the latest standards for energy efficiency and safety.
View of new outdoor classroom space that effectively triples education spaces.
We have more than doubled the lab spaces, expanding our capacity for cutting-edge science, fostering collaboration and education, accelerating conservation solutions, and deepening community engagement in protecting coastal ecosystems
