Local Landowners Donate 273 Acres on Great South Pond, Plymouth

We are pleased to announce today that Wildlands Trust has received a donation of 273 acres of land in Plymouth, the largest single land acquisition for Wildlands Trust in our 44 year history. This magnificent property contains about one mile of frontage on Great South Pond, a unique Coastal Plain Pond.  Jerry and Maureen Sheehan donated the Property to Wildlands Trust so that this fragile habitat remain protected and cared for in perpetuity. 

“This area has held a special meaning for generations of our family, and many other families in the area. We acquired various parcels of this land over 50 years from several local landowners who used the land for deer and duck hunting, fishing and wildlife observation. We are pleased the land will be preserved for future generations and that the extraordinary biodiversity there will be able to thrive. Mrs. Sheehan and I are proud to give back to our community by conserving a special part of the Town’s landscape and heritage,” said Jerry Sheehan.

View of Great South Pond along the newly acquired pond frontage.

The property is a part of a globally rare ecosystem known as the Pine Barrens and is home to several types of rare plants and animals.  The land is in the proposed “Great Thicket” National Wildlife Refuge, a project of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intended to help address wildlife decline in the Northeast U.S.

The property directly abuts other significant conservation lands in the area, including Wildlands' 23-acre Domero Cortelli Preserve, acquired with the support of the Sheehan Family Foundation in the early 2000’s, the Plymouth Town Forest, and the Myles Standish State Forest. 

Together, these conservation lands total 15,000 acres of greenspace -- an area that is unequaled in Southeastern Massachusetts for its scale, concentrations of rare species, and opportunities for passive recreation.

The protected land contains a wonderfully diverse mosaic of Pine-Scrub Oak and Pine Oak woodlands, coastal plain pond habitat, diverse topography, and retired cranberry bogs. It serves as a buffer zone around Great South Pond, helping to preserve water quality.  It will also help protect the federally designated Plymouth-Carver Sole Source Aquifer, a 199-square mile aquifer serving eight towns that is highly vulnerable to pollution. In addition to donating the land, Mr. and Mrs. Sheehan established a stewardship endowment at Wildlands Trust to fund the oversight and protection of the property.

“On behalf of our Board of Directors, staff, and members, we wish to express our deepest gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Sheehan for entrusting this unique property to Wildlands Trust," said Karen Grey, the Trust’s Executive Director. “The Great South Pond property is the largest parcel that Wildlands Trust has obtained in our 44-year history, but even more importantly, it is one of the most ecologically significant in the region. It provides habitat for multiple rare species, including several globally rare species, and helps to protect Great South Pond’s water quality.  We look forward to continuing the Sheehans’ exemplary stewardship of this important piece of land.”

“The Great South Pond land donation is the latest in a long-running series of conservation projects the Sheehan family has enabled," said Grey.  “Without their consistent support for the conservation work that we and others do, Southeastern Massachusetts would be a much lesser place - less green, less healthy, and with a diminished quality of life.”     

Wildlands Trust intends to establish public access over a trail corridor linking the Plymouth Town Forest with Myles Standish State Forest. 

Great South Pond, Plymouth

Creating a Community

By Karen Grey, President

Drone footage of Davis-Douglas Farm at sunrise on New Year's Eve Day, 2016

On December 31st, the Trust hosted another well-attended community event, this being the third to draw over 100 people since we opened the Community Conservation Barn doors in November. In six weeks, we have hosted over 550 people for programs ranging from hikes and wreath making to community potluck dinners and open space meetings.

At dawn on New Year’s Eve Day, a hearty group gathered at the behest of Plymouth journalist, Frank Mand, to celebrate the beauty of Plymouth in the last sunrise of the year. It was also an opportunity for Mand to introduce his ambitious “Walking Home,” project in which he will spend a year trekking from California back to Plymouth. Fair to say, this was predominately a Fans of Frank affair, but the gathering, held at our new Community Conservation Barn, also underscored our vision of providing a venue for building community through environmental awareness.

The diversity and creativity of our programming is allowing us to reach many new people. We look forward to seeing you soon to introduce you to the Wildlands Trust and our beloved Davis-Douglas Farm.

For upcoming programs, go to "What's Happening", then "Events", or wildlandstrust.org/calendar.

Quest for Cotton Pond Trail

By Erik Boyer, Property Manager

About a year and a half ago while running errands after work, a cashier saw my Wildlands Trust logo and started talking about a preserve that he used to love hiking at when he lived on Ship Pond Rd.  He described a walk that consisted of some hilly topography and that concluded at a little kettle pond.  He hadn’t been there since moving to the Cape a couple of years earlier, but asked me how that property was looking currently. 

At that point I had only worked with Wildlands for a couple of months and had yet to visit many of our properties.  However, the passion and detail with which he described the property led me to pin down the Emery East Preserve, the smaller of our two Emery Preserves and one of the Trust’s first pieces of conservation land. 

I spent the next day bushwhacking through a thicket of huckleberry and green briar to eventually make my way to Cotton Pond, a beautiful little kettle pond at the end of the overgrown trail. Two other features stood out: a very distinctive steep hill about half way through the hike – the type of hill that, during my days of running cross country, would have been honored a name, and an old sand pit that had become the dumping grounds for an assortment of old debris ranging from old computers, bed frames, and piles of misshapen scrap metal.  I flagged out the old trail route and then didn’t visit the property for a while.

That is, until this past summer of 2016. On the hottest, most humid week of August, a group from the Sierra Club arrived at Wildlands Trust for a working vacation. This presented the perfect opportunity to reestablish the trail at Emery East Preserve. During this week, twenty plus volunteers re-blazed the old footpath, added more colorful trail markers, and removed a large portion of the debris that existed on site. To conclude this week of hard work, the trail was officially re-opened, reaching all the way from Ship Pond Rd. to Cotton Pond.

Sierra Club volunteers blaze a trail in the hot August heat!

However, the work wasn’t quite finished. We spent two Trailblazer Saturdays, one in September and one in December, with dedicated volunteers helping to install natural steps and a rope hand rail on the steep portion of the hill. Now hikers will be aided by foot and hand holds on the return trip from the pond, as well as by a bench built by the Sierra Club work group awaiting at the peak of the hill.

September Trailblazers put in natural stairs on the steep hill. 

December Trailblazers get the job finished!

Round trip the trail is about 1.25 miles in length, but the steep hill makes one feel as though they’ve walked about 4 miles on level grade.  Overall our Cotton Pond Trail at Emery East Preserve offers a more challenging walk then some of our other trails in Plymouth and it could not have been done without the help of the volunteers from Sierra Club and our Trailblazer team!

To hike the Cotton Pond Trail, park at the small trail head on the north side of Ship Pond Rd., east of Secretariat Drive. Trail map available here.

Land Trusts - Aren't They All The Same? (Well, yes and no)

By Scott MacFaden, Director of Land Protection

Since the end of World War II, America’s corporations have spent millions, probably billions, on advertising, in part to promote product differentiation.  While it is unlikely that most land trusts will ever have the benefit of large advertising budgets, we at Wildlands Trust have come to learn that a little product differentiation in our profession is not a bad thing.   

Although it is evident to those of us immersed in the field, it can be difficult to discern the differences between land trusts. 

This confusion can also extend into day-to-day conversations and social interactions.  From time to time, within various social settings this correspondent has explained what type of organization I work for, only to have my discussion partner reply:  “Oh wait—you work for, what is it, The Nature Company?” (sic).   My task then is to politely attempt an explanation in nonprofit product differentiation, and to note that while we have the utmost respect and admiration for our colleagues from The Nature Conservancy, and have collaborated with them on many projects of mutual interest, our organizations are very much separate and distinct entities. 

So, while we all more or less are working toward achieving the same outcomes, the land trust community is not a monolithic entity, nor a single nonprofit superorganism.  Indeed, the most obvious point of differentiation between land trusts is one of scale.  For example:

• The Nature Conservancy has chapters in most states but also works globally. 

• New England Forestry Foundation and the Northeast Wilderness Trust work within a multi-state region and service much of New England. 

•  The Trustees of Reservations and the Massachusetts Audubon Society work only within the state of Massachusetts.

• Wildlands Trust (our favorite) is a regional land trust. Our present coverage area encompasses parts of four counties in Massachusetts—Plymouth, Bristol, Norfolk, and Barnstable.

• There are multiple regional land trusts across our state—a good example is the Essex County Greenbelt Association, which serves the northeastern part of the state and provided the model for Wildlands Trust’s founders back in the early 1970’s. 

• The smallest land trusts typically serve a single community, and in most cases are entirely dependent on volunteers.  Examples of single-community land trusts in the Trust’s coverage area include the Rochester Land Trust and the Hingham Land Trust.

At whatever scale a land trust operates at, none of us would even exist, let alone thrive, without the generosity of donors big and small.  So, a hearty thank you to all those who support our profession, and in particular those who make possible our work here at Wildlands Trust. 

Hoyt-Hall in the News

Check out Kezia Bacon's blog post on Wildlands Trust Hoyt-Hall Preserve!