“The landscape might look stable and stationary, but it is actually highly dynamic,” says conservation manager Donnell Gasbarrini of the Wilder Institute, which works to protect and restore this fragile habitat. “Because of the lack of soil accumulation, plants here are highly vulnerable. Rocks actually move and shift around by the forces of nature, which are invisible but always at work.”

Other forces are at work too: human disturbance poses the greatest threat to the endemic plants. Since 2023, Gasbarrini has worked with community-based conservation organizations, local communities and students to clean up and restore a part of the barrens near Sandy Cove that was used as an unofficial dump after a limestone quarry there closed in 1975. The rock crusher and garbage were removed in 2011, but the damage had been done.

As well as human garbage, the piles of soil and rock from the quarrying era decomposed, creating nutrient-rich soil. While ideal for gardening, rich soil is detrimental to limestone barrens specialists and attracts invasive plants. When the community learned that Long’s braya still had a toehold near the old dumping site, they were galvanized to act.

“The plants cannot be protected on their own. The only way to preserve them for the future is to protect their habitat,” says botanist Michael Burzynski. A key member of the Limestone Barrens Species at Risk Recovery Team for almost 25 years, Burzynski has been taking cuttings and collecting seeds from the rare native plants of the barrens and propagating them for replanting.