2025 Forest Advocate Award: Jon Leibowitz
In our culture there are awards for the best singers, the best actors, the best sports stars, the best scientists, and many other “bests”, but there was no award for the best forest advocates. The Old-Growth Forest Network decided that there should be such an award, so we created the Forest Advocate Award as a way to honor these special people. We are honored to award Jon Leibowitz as the OGFN Forest Advocate of 2025.
Jon Leibowitz and OGFN Executive Director, Sarah Adloo, at the 2025 Northeastern Old Growth Conference
Jon is the President and CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT), the only land trust in the Northeast solely dedicated to protecting forever-wild landscapes—for the benefit of Nature and people. Since taking the helm in 2017, Jon has transformed NEWT from a modest grassroots nonprofit with three staff and a $500,000 budget into a thriving conservation organization with 23 employees and an annual operating budget exceeding $3 million. Under his leadership, the Trust has also permanently protected more than 60,000 additional acres of wildlands—safeguarding critical habitat for the region’s wildlife, storing carbon naturally, and offering quiet, contemplative spaces for those who seek them.
Jon’s impact goes well beyond conservation outcomes, as important as they are to him. With a deep commitment to building a healthy, inclusive, and values-driven workplace, he has implemented a suite of progressive policies to make NEWT a truly great place to work. Inspired by Scandinavian work models, Jon introduced a 35-hour workweek, generous paid time off, flexible scheduling, sabbaticals, and significantly expanded parental and bereavement leave. He also introduced a living Staff Values commitment that aims to shape organizational culture and emphasizes work-life balance, equity, collaboration, candid communication, and trust. As an other example of his approach to leadership, to further support staff wellbeing, Jon instituted “Stay Interviews”- a proactive and empathetic approach to identifying concerns before they become reasons to leave.
Through both visionary conservation and compassionate leadership, Jon is helping to redefine what it means to lead a mission-driven organization in the 21st century.
