Conservation movements such as the Matsutake Crusaders represent a collaboration between humans and nonhumans that rebuilds ecological and social relationships. By contributing to these acts of environmental conservation, the volunteers rediscover community, self-purpose, tradition, and hope.

The collaborative work required to restore forests can help rebuild human communities and relationships that were once broken by modernization and alienation. Through shared hands-on work, participants can rediscover human connections and relationships with the forest, creating a latent commons. The Matsutake Crusaders, comprising of elders, young people, and children, are brought together during their time spent volunteering and at lunchtime gatherings. This forest work became a way to reverse alienation and mend people's relationships, not only with one another, but also with nature.

Individuals participating in forest work redefine themselves and their relationship to nature and their community, undergoing a mutualistic transformation. This collaborative work gives them a feeling of worth and makes them feel like they belong. Labor put into ecological conservation reshapes volunteers' sense of self-identity and their understanding of meaning.

By combining traditional farming practices with modern environmental work, volunteers keep their culture alive while fixing modern problems. Rather than rejecting tradition, volunteers value the ancestral knowledge, combining it with scientific methods to demonstrate a more-than-human collaboration. The Crusaders' work is not only about restoring the environment, but also restoring tradition.

By working together towards a common goal, the Matsutake Crusaders create a sense of hope where each person's participation encourages others. The uncertainty of whether the matsutake mushrooms will ever grow becomes a way to teach participants the value of collaboration and hard work over immediate success, embodying a sense of co-species being. Even with the possibility of never seeing the results, it doesn't stop people from participating, and it creates a deeper passion for this project.

The idea that for nature to be healthy, it must be left alone and undisturbed is seen as a Western belief. They believe the best way to heal ecosystems is to remove human activity entirely. In New England, the lack of human disturbance allowed forests to flourish.