Editor's Note: Summer 2025
National Wildlife magazine鈥檚 editor contemplates facing reality and finding purpose in wildlife conservation work in the year 2025
- By Jennifer Wehunt
- NWF News
- Jun 25, 2025
A juvenile queen conch makes eye contact with the camera in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
WE BEGAN MULLING A STORY on the myth of climate-proof cities last summer, after Vermont was inundated for the second year in a row by 100-year floods. Then came the historic deluge Hurricane Helene dumped on the Asheville area in North Carolina last September. Both sites previously were pegged “climate havens”: the now almost unfathomable idea of inland locations shielded from the harshest pummelings of a changing climate.
By the time you read this issue—containing Jessica Snyder Sachs’ excellent “The Myth of Climate Havens”—the idea of any kind of refuge in the year 2025 might feel outdated, as environmental protections passed by due process get rolled back and financial support for federal agencies and national institutions vanishes into thin air. No cornerstone of our country feels unturned.
And yet, folks are working to find a path forward through the chaos. Take Vermont and North Carolina, where rebuilt infrastructure is designed to withstand floods and connect habitat. Or California, where wildlife centers have sprung into action for brown pelicans. Or Puerto Rico, where scientists are getting creative to conserve the queen conch. Or here at NWF, where our colleagues and affiliates are dedicated to keeping public lands public, sheltering your residence from wildfire and limiting the harvest of horseshoe crabs. Thanks to them, we find purpose in our inboxes and in these pages. We hope you do, too.
