A Farewell and Thank You to Wildlands Trust

It is amazing how fast 11 months can fly by. It feels like only a couple weeks ago I moved from central New Jersey to begin my AmeriCorps service term with Wildlands Trust as a land stewardship coordinator. A highlight of my time at Wildlands has been the tremendous variety of landscapes at the preserves I have been fortunate to steward. From the hemlock groves of Tucker Preserve in Pembroke to the wide, open meadows of Great River Preserve in Bridgewater and so many more. I have appreciated the delightful mixture of habitats that I have been exposed to throughout my time here. 

When I started at Wildlands, I thought that much of my time would be devoted to managing trails, but the position offered a much wider range of experiences. Tasks such as building benches or training new volunteers, while at first challenging, developed into new skills through the aid and supervision of friendly Wildlands staff. I most enjoyed the ever-changing variety of responsibilities because it has made me a more flexible and open-minded individual.

Leading the way through Stone Farm Conservation Area at Brockton Nature Festival (October 2019).

This fall, I will be attending Duke University’s environmental management graduate program with a concentration in ecosystem science and conservation. Throughout this exciting new chapter, I hope to continue deepening my knowledge of our surrounding habitats and how to best protect them. I owe Wildlands a lot of credit for helping prepare me for this new experience. 

I would like to thank those who supported me throughout my service term. First off, I would like to thank the entire Wildlands community for being welcoming and supportive throughout this chapter of my life, especially Erik Boyer and Conor Michaud for being supportive supervisors. Thank you to the Brockton High School Envirothon team, a fun and bright group of students, who invoked a feeling of nostalgia from my own high school experience. Thank you to Rachel Calderara, Joyce Voorhis, Melissa Kelly and Hayley Leonard, who also support the Envirothon team. Thank you to the TerraCorps staff as well, especially Mackenzie Sains, Hanna Mogensen and Marissa Patterson, who were always helpful in guiding me towards the goals of my service. 

I would like to also give an immense thank you to all the volunteers I worked with on work days or Adopt-A-Preserve trainings. You are invaluable to the execution of Wildlands’ mission and I had a blast getting to know such an interesting, eclectic group of people. Although this is a farewell for now, I am confident I will return to walk some of the many scenic trail systems, see past co-workers and reconnect with volunteers. 

- Eamon Horrigan

Brockton Youth Shine Bright Despite COVID-19 Challenges

By Outreach and Education Manager Rachel Calderara

The 2019/20 Envirothon team tours the Taunton River Desalination Plan (winter 2019).

Since 2015, Wildlands Trust has sponsored and coached the Brockton High School (BHS) Envirothon team. The team heads to the Massachusetts Envirothon each May, where they compete with high schools from across the state in forestry, wildlife, soils and water, and present a current issue research project on a topic that changes each year. Over the years, the team has earned some impressive accolades, including winning first prize for their current issue project on working with nature in watersheds in 2018. Our partner at BHS, science teacher Joyce Voorhis, received the Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Energy and Environmental Education in both 2017 and 2019 for her work with the Envirothon team. 

Although 2020 brought unique challenges for Envirothon and the Brockton team, they managed to shine bright in the face of adversity. When the 2020 Massachusetts Envirothon was cancelled, the organization challenged teams to a video contest in place of the competition. Five students from the BHS team – Alyce Watt, Logan Coughlin, Erika Fernandes, Christina Giusti and Sofiyat Bello – stepped up to the challenge and created an 8-minute video about the water issues facing their city and their thoughts about COVID-19 and the environment both at home and around the world. Brockton High School was one of only five teams to submit a video for the challenge, earning them a $250 gift card to Forestry Suppliers. You can watch their video presentation here:

 

This summer, another unique opportunity arose, this time for alumni of the program, when they were invited to speak at a Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Massachusetts (WAA) virtual meeting. Wildlands Trust Outreach and Education Manager Rachel Calderara worked with WAA Coordinator and Outreach Manager Dorie Stolley to assemble a panel of three inspirational women to share their perspectives on the environment with WAA for their “Learn Along” series on environmental justice. Brockton High School Envirothon alumni Lily Green, MaryKate Clark and Nicole Mejia shared their unique experiences and spoke of the significant impacts that environmental education has had on their lives. You can watch WAA’s recording of the Zoom meeting here:

At Wildlands Trust, our commitment to environmental education in the city of Brockton remains strong despite the challenges of this pandemic, and we look forward to getting back to work with the students this fall, whether in person or online. 

Reaching Higher for Environmental Justice

Members of Wildlands Trust are well aware of our commitment to the city of Brockton, where we have worked for over a decade. During these years, Wildlands has dedicated staff and funding to protect and restore 250 acres of much needed open space. But that is just the beginning. We have coached over 125 Brockton High School students through the Massachusetts Envirothon competition, introducing kids to environmental issues and potential career opportunities before they head off to college. We manage community outreach for the city’s urban tree planting program (Greening the Gateway Cities), aimed at lowering energy costs by creating tree canopy to reduce temperatures and provide direct shading. Through our Green Team program, we provide Brockton youth with paid service-learning positions on natural resource projects where they work alongside our staff. We convene and advise neighborhood park groups, church groups and community garden promoters who want to take more initiative to further environmental progress in the city. Currently, we are working on the restoration of the iconic Flagg Pond on the Brockton High School grounds, a project that will engage high school students and their teachers as our partners. 

Serving this environmental justice community is some of our most meaningful work at Wildlands and we have plans to do much more.  As a society, we all need to be reaching higher to help communities like Brockton, and the land trusts spread across the United States are not released from this imperative. Land trusts like Wildlands need to look beyond our habit of tallying up acres and reporting on our completed deals because these measurements fall short in a changing America. Both are the measures of a bygone era and although we will probably always apply them to gauge our success on some level, our communities are desperate for more than simply an acre count. 

Essentially, land trusts are civic organizations and as such, are well-positioned to build authentic and effective partnerships that reflect the diversity and demographics of those communities that need us most, like Brockton. For the past several years, Wildlands has been part of a cohort brought together by the Island Foundation to work with environmental justice expert, Angela Parks, to learn how to embed diversity, equity and inclusion principles into our guiding documents and programmatic work. Wildlands still has a long way to go, but our clear commitment is a starting point. 

Thank you to all of our supporters for making this work possible.

Karen Grey
President

Wildlands Trust Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

Wildlands Trust is committed to protecting land and providing access to nature for the people of our region, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We will approach our work with complete respect for the cultures and perspectives of the communities we serve as we endeavor to connect and inspire all people to care about nature and the future of our planet.

Something Super is Happening in Plymouth

By Land Protection Director Scott MacFaden

We live in an age of superlatives, many of them empty, embellished or completely unwarranted.  However, on occasion, we at Wildlands Trust feel it’s appropriate to indulge in a superlative or two. One such occasion occurred on June 29, when we acquired 975 acres of Community Preservation Act (CPA) Conservation Restrictions (CR) from one of our most important conservation partners, the town of Plymouth.  

The completion of the restrictions is the culmination of years of proactive efforts by the town to use the resources provided by the CPA to invest in open space protection. Across multiple years and numerous town meeting cycles, the town successfully advanced dozens of open space acquisitions to completion, encompassing a wide variety of landscapes, viewsheds and wildlife habitats, including globally rare habitats such as pine barrens. Equally important, almost every acquired property helps to protect Plymouth’s sole source aquifer, one of its most priceless natural resources.  

Once a property has been acquired, the CPA’s stipulations require towns to place permanent restrictions on them. Nonprofit conservation organizations like Wildlands Trust are qualified to hold such restrictions and one of the most important services we provide to communities in our coverage area is working with them to hold CPA CR’s. We value all of our municipal partners, but we especially value our relationship with Plymouth, our hometown and the largest town by area in the Commonwealth.  

In keeping with typical practice, we initially set out to draft CR’s for each individual property the town had acquired; however, with so many properties in play, it was advisable to seek a more efficient approach to advancing and completing the needed CR’s. With that in mind, we reached out to John Gioia, the principal CR reviewer for the Commonwealth’s Division of Conservation Services, and he provided a sample of a CR completed elsewhere in the state that had bundled numerous properties into a single document. As an organizing principle, this approach offers many advantages and efficiencies, including allowing for the preparation and advancement of several CR documents instead of over a dozen individual CR’s.  

While enamored of the template John provided to us, we elected to take it a step further and create three distinct “Super CR’s” , with each Super CR including properties possessing similar geographic scale and landscape features.  

These “Super” CR’s include:

The view from Hio Hill, one of Plymouth’s highest-elevation landforms.

Forest/Large Landscape Block CR | 786.6 acres: This CR includes multiple properties of larger scale, including a 375-acre assemblage located off of Old Sandwich Road in southeast Plymouth, a 46 acre contiguous block near Great South Pond and South Triangle Pond, and an 88-acre expanse on Old Sandwich Road that includes Hio Hill, one of Plymouth’s highest-elevation landforms.

Bog Habitats CR | 94.9 acres: This CR encompasses three properties ranging in size from 64 acres to 11 acres, with each property including cranberry bogs now permanently retired from active production. As part of an ambitious effort to improve water quality in many of Plymouth’s 365 ponds, the Department of Marine and Environmental Affairs (DMEA) prioritized acquiring certain cranberry bog properties that were adversely affecting nearby ponds, including Savery Pond and Billington Sea.  

Riparian Corridor CR | 7.4 acres: This CR includes three properties that either have frontage on or are proximate to a brook or river, including Town Brook, Carters River and Bartlett Brook.  While possessed of less acreage than its Super CR brethren, the properties assembled into this CR are nonetheless of considerable significance, including the site of the former Plymco building and dam (pictured below). This property was the focus of a comprehensive restoration project initiated and led by the Department of Marine and Environmental Affairs that removed an unsightly and long-standing obstacle to fish passage and the free flow of Town Brook.  

Retired Cranberry Bogs Near Savery Pond.

Town Brook Flows Freely Again!

Also completed were two individual CR’s for properties acquired after the Super CR’s were finalized and an amendment to an existing CR:

Herring Pond Watershed CR | 53.5 acres: The town purchased this property last fall with a combination of CPA funds and a LAND grant from the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. It has extensive frontage on Roxy Cahoon Road, is almost entirely upland, includes a portion of the ancient way known as Valley Road and directly abuts a 138-acre expanse that was formerly part of Camp Massasoit and is now town-owned open space.  

Huntley Family Preserve CR | 4.6 acres: The town acquired this strategically situated property in July 2019. It has extensive frontage on Jenney Pond and connects with adjacent town land to create an expanded assemblage of open space along the lower Town Brook corridor and on the periphery of downtown Plymouth.  

Ship Pond Road CR Amendment | 20 acres: This strategically situated property directly abuts and serves to expand the 83-acre Ship Pond Road CR the town granted to Wildlands in 2005.  It is also an integral component of a large corridor of protected open space situated north of Ship Pond Road and west of Old Sandwich Road.  

Every single acre protected by these restrictions is a credit to the foresight and skill of the Plymouth Community Preservation Committee (CPC). Few towns in the Commonwealth have been more successful in implementing the Act in all its dimensions, particularly in open space. Whether pursuing multi-million dollar acquisitions or more modest opportunities, the committee has done an exemplary job of building support for each open space project, securing the approval of Town Meeting, and helping to create a supportive constituency for open space preservation in Plymouth.  

The committed volunteers of the CPC work closely with the skilled professionals who serve in the town’s Department of Marine and Environmental Affairs. From leading ambitious riparian restoration efforts like the Plymco project to working diligently to protect the Plymouth sole source aquifer, the DMEA never relents in its mission to secure the future of the town’s green infrastructure.  

For our part, Wildlands has never come close to absorbing so much acreage into our portfolio on a single day. While counting acres is an inescapable component of land trust work — and we are always pleased to expand our holdings — we take more satisfaction from the realization that the CR’s we now hold will help permanently protect almost 1,000 acres of Plymouth’s most ecologically significant landscapes, as well as help to safeguard the considerable investment the residents of Plymouth have made in their irreplaceable open spaces. Now that’s worthy of a superlative or two!