Crystal Spring Preserve is Open!

By Thomas Patti, Communications Coordinator

Crystal Spring Preserve in Plainville.

Crystal Spring Preserve, our first property in Plainville, is officially OPEN! 

Wildlands Trust’s acquisition of this special place came in late 2022 after a 20-year partnership with the land’s previous caretakers, the Crystal Spring Center for Ecology, Spirituality, and Earth Education. Learn more about the preserve’s rich human and natural history at our property webpage here. 

TRAIL MAP AND PROPERTY DESCRIPTION: CLICK HERE 

Crystal Spring Preserve.

Preparing the property for public access took the sustained effort of our extended stewardship team, including staff and faithful volunteers. Between February and May, three volunteer workdays moved the preserve incrementally closer to its current accessible state. Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to help us take this huge step in expanding our regional land conservation portfolio! 

As is the case for many of our properties, “stewardship” at Crystal Spring Preserve goes far beyond clearing trails and removing debris. In addition, we are entrusted with less tangible, though equally critical, resources—a story we hope to carry on, and a vision we strive to sustain. Sister Barbara Harrington, Sister Chris Loughlin, and the entire Crystal Spring Center team saw the property as a place for both children and adults to get in touch with their spiritual connection to nature. Evidence of this philosophy can be found throughout the preserve, as well as in the passionate words of all who engaged with the Crystal Spring Center. Preserving these stories is paramount to our effective stewardship of the land. 

Volunteers at our April workday explore the Meditation Circle, a former education site of the Crystal Spring Center for Ecology, Spirituality, and Earth Education.

“[The Crystal Spring Center] invited Wildlands Trust into a dream,” said Sister Barbara. “It became a mutually enhancing relationship. We then became part of your dream, too. And something new and really quite wonderful has ensued.” (Watch Sister Barbara and Kathy McGrath speak about Crystal Spring Preserve for our 50 Years, 50 People series here.) 

During our April volunteer day, the stewardship team came across several trail signs from the property’s Crystal Spring Center era. After sitting on the forest floor for years, these painted wooden planks and stumps had seen better days. But the care and devotion that had been spent on their production were instantly clear. “Insects have searched for sacred spaces on Earth for 395 million years,” reads one sign adorned with ants, bees, and butterflies. The Wildlands team brought these signs back to our Plymouth headquarters to restore them to their former glory before returning them to the Crystal Spring trails. 

Sister Barbara Harrington (fourth from right) and the Wildlands stewardship team display well-worn trail signs at Crystal Spring Preserve.

This project and others will help us uphold our obligation to holistically preserve the land—trees, ponds, stories, and signs alike. Stay tuned for updates. 

See you on the trails! 

Spring 2023 Land Acquisitions Update

By Scott MacFaden, Director of Land Protection

The Lake Street CR includes frontage on Jones River Brook, a tributary of the Jones River (pictured). Photo by Jimmy Powell of Jones River Landing.

Thus far in 2023, we’ve completed several projects that protect a diverse array of habitats and conservation values, and in one case further strengthen a long-standing collaboration with one of our municipal partners. 

Lake Street CR, Plympton 

In January, we completed a 31-acre Conservation Restriction in northeast Plympton near the Kingston line. The CR area is part of a larger privately owned property that will include a solar energy installation. Because the proposed project site is within mapped habitat for the Eastern Box Turtle, a species of “Special Concern” as identified by the Commonwealth’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP), the project proponents were required to grant the CR. 

The CR protects land identified by NHESP as containing significant wildlife habitat, including “Priority Habitat of Rare Species” and “Estimated Habitats of Rare Wildlife.”  The CR land includes frontage on Jones River Brook, a tributary of the Jones River.   

As solar projects continue to proliferate across Southeastern Massachusetts, those that are proposed within areas subject to NHESP’s regulatory purview typically require the granting of a CR. We are actively evaluating several other solar project-associated CR’s across the region, and expect we will be offered more projects of this type in the future.   

McCarthy Farm Conservation Area CR, Rockland 

In March, we secured a Conservation Restriction (CR) on 36 acres in southwest Rockland. The Town of Rockland acquired the parcel in late 2021 using Community Preservation Act and other state funds. To learn more about the history and natural profile of the property, click here. 

Sleeper Conservation Area CR, Hanson 

The Bay Circuit Trail, a 200-mile hiking path that lies near the Sleeper Conservation Area in Hanson. By John Phelan, CC BY 3.0

In April, we completed a 12-acre Community Preservation Act (CPA) CR on the Town of Hanson’s Sleeper Conservation Area. Acquired by the Town in 2022 with a combination of CPA funds and a Local Acquisitions for Natural Diversity (LAND) grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Sleeper Conservation Area primarily comprises forested upland, punctuated by several isolated pockets of wooded deciduous wetland. 

The Sleeper Conservation Area’s position within the broader landscape bolsters its conservation impact. It directly abuts the Town of Hanson’s Camp Kiwanee, a long-cherished community asset on Maquan Pond, as well as the Town’s Alton J. Smith Preserve and the neighboring Town of Pembroke’s Town Forest. The preservation of the Sleeper Conservation Area thus strengthens the landscape connectivity between these two municipally owned open space assemblages. 

A section of the Bay Circuit Trail, the premier long-distance hiking trail in Eastern Massachusetts, runs just to the west of the conservation area. Preserving this parcel helps protect the scenic integrity of the trail’s corridor and maintain the recreational value of this regionally and historically significant footpath, a chronological contemporary of the Appalachian Trail.   

In addition to its favorable landscape context, significance for wildlife corridor connectivity, and proximity to the Bay Circuit Trail, the Sleeper Conservation Area also contributes to water resources protection. The parcel lies within multiple areas identified by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection as significant for drinking water and aquifer protection, and sits near Great Sandy Bottom Pond, which provides drinking water for the neighboring towns of Rockland and Abington.   

The LAND grant award was critical to obtaining the support of Hanson Town Meeting voters for the project. The award provided almost two-thirds of the project’s funding, with CPA funds providing the balance. As part of our ongoing partnership with the Town of Hanson, Wildlands staff helped prepare the LAND grant application and provided additional assistance as needed. Many thanks to Hanson Conservation Commission Chair Phil Clemons, whose indefatigable efforts ensured the project’s success. Phil has served as our primary contact person in Hanson for decades, and is a true champion of all things conservation. 

Upcoming Projects 

We’re working to close more acquisitions over the next several months, including projects in Middleboro, Bridgewater, and Rehoboth. Stay tuned! 

Get Involved

Hoping to protect your property’s natural and cultural heritage for generations to come? Learn about Conservation Restrictions, Deed Restrictions, land donations, and more on our Conserve Your Land page.

Late Summer Land Acquisitions Update

By Scott MacFaden, Director of Land Protection

Thus far in 2022, we’ve completed a variety of projects across our coverage area that protect a diverse array of habitats and conservation values, including properties on two of the region’s major rivers.

In February, we completed the first two phases of a long-contemplated project that will create our first preserve in Plainville. These first two steps involved adding another two acres to the 33.5-acre Conservation Restriction (CR) we’ve held on lands of the Crystal Spring Center for Ecology, Spirituality, and Earth Education Inc., since 2008, and then assigning the expanded CR to another qualified nonprofit conservation organization—the Attleboro Land Trust. With those steps concluded, the third and final step will transfer the “fee simple,” or outright ownership of the property, from Crystal Spring to Wildlands Trust. We expect that final transfer to occur before year’s end.

A drone's view of Sylvester Field and the Indian Head River in Hanover. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

In June, we acquired five acres in Norwell along the North River that protects important habitat for marsh wrens. Donated by the Estate of Clayton Robinson, the parcel represents the culmination of the Sylvester Field Preservation Project, through which we previously protected 20 contiguous acres along the Third Herring Brook in nearby Hanover.

In late July, we purchased 30 acres on Halfway Pond in Plymouth that was the largest remaining unprotected parcel on the pond’s west shore, and consequently one of our longest-standing preservation priorities. The property includes pockets of Pine Barrens, a globally rare natural community, and directly abuts and expands our Halfway Pond Conservation Area, now over 460 acres in extent and one of the crown jewels of our protected lands portfolio.

Most recently, in the waning days of August we protected 11.7 acres in Lakeville along the upper Nemasket River through the combination of a deed restriction and a two-acre land donation. This hybrid project protects over 900 feet of linear frontage along the Nemasket, a major tributary of the federally designated Wild and Scenic Taunton River.

Morning fog on Halfway Pond in Plymouth. Photo by Jerry Monkman.

We’re working to close more projects by year’s end, including the third and final phase of the Plainville project, and projects in Bridgewater, Scituate, Rockland, and Hanson.   

Watch this space!   

Staying the Course to Protect Atlantic Coastal Woodlands

Read Time: 3 min

By Karen Grey, Executive Director

As we were sealing the fate of the newest addition to Wildlands’ 550-acre Halfway Pond Conservation Area this past July, one of the sellers remarked, “Can you believe we started talking about this seven years ago?” He was surprised when I explained that it’s not unusual for projects to take a decade (or sometimes two) from start to finish. Establishing trust with those contemplating the fate of their land is the lynchpin to success, and building that trust requires an investment of time from both parties. Often, the landowner is surprised at how long a project can take, but rarely are we.

Wildlands Trust has methodically worked to build the relationships necessary to protect the last four privately held parcels within our largest holding, the Halfway Pond Conservation Area in Plymouth, for the past thirty years. We successfully protected three of the four parcels by 2015 before turning our sights toward the jewel in the crown, the 30-acre property owned by the Advaita Meditation Center (AMC), headquartered in Waltham. AMC had purchased the land and its accompanying 11,000-square-foot building as a retreat center in the 1980s, and by 2015, its aging membership was rethinking the organization’s future. For the past seven years, we have worked with AMC to contemplate a purchase of the property by Wildlands that would include a term tenancy for AMC to continue using the retreat center several times a year. On July 26, 2022, we celebrated the consummation of this win-win-win scenario for Wildlands, AMC, and the people of Plymouth.

Halfway Pond Conservation Area is a significant holding within the Atlantic Coastal Woodland (ACW), a 20,000-acre forested corridor in Southeastern Massachusetts spanning from Carver and Wareham in the west and through Plymouth to Cape Cod Bay in the east. Wildlands Trust has focused much of its work over the last 50 years on protecting this landscape, recognized as the largest contiguous forest in one of the fastest-growing regions in the Northeastern United States. The ACW is an intact ecosystem home to globally rare pine barrens and coastal plain ponds with huge sections uninterrupted by roads and development. Other iconic landscape features of the ACW include wooded wetlands, cranberry bog complexes, and a mosaic of pitch pine, scrub oak, and scattered ponds with rare species found nowhere else in the world; ACW has the second-largest remaining tract of Coastal Pine Barrens worldwide. Globally rare plants sit upon deep glacial deposits to filter and protect the largest drinking water aquifer in Massachusetts, the Plymouth-Carver Sole Source Aquifer.

Large-scale development projects continually threaten to fragment and denigrate the ecological integrity of this vital landscape. We are delighted that this property is now permanently protected. Plans are underway to expand trail systems and establish a stewardship training center on the property.