BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR

By Karen Grey, Executive Director

Having meaningful and respectful connections to the people we live amongst is something to value these days.  Strong neighborhoods and good neighbor relations add meaning to our lives, evoking a sense of connection, security, and collective shared interests.

Being a good neighbor is an essential quality of a responsible land trust.  With 240 conservation parcels in our portfolio, the Wildlands Trust handles a steady stream of phone calls, emails, and other interactions with many of our neighbors who care deeply about our lands. We rely on them to keep watchful eyes on our properties, report problems, and help us when issues arise;  in return we do our best to be attentive to their concerns.

For the past year, we have been working closely with our neighbors at the Halfway Pond Conservation Area, an important wildlife habitat and passive recreation preserve in Plymouth. Threats to the pond shore habitat require the Trust to adopt new management protocols, which include closing a section of the dirt road that neighbors have historically used as an alternative route. This proposed change is being met with some resistance and raises issues for the neighborhood including the location of new parking areas and restrictions on activities around the pond. Through an open dialogue, we are trying to learn more about their concerns, and as well, they are coming to understanding why the Trust needs to take such measures. The outcome will likely be imperfect for both the Trust and the people who live around the pond, but it will be a solution born of trust, respect, and compromise.

If you live in the vicinity of one of our properties please know we always want to hear your ideas and concerns.

WHAT WE ARE WORKING ON NOW

Here at Wildlands, we take pride in our public trails and want hikers and trail users to know all about what a preserve has to offer.  As such, we have updated several of our kiosks with new maps and interpretive materials, making it easier to find which trails to take and to know what wildlife to watch out for.  Be sure to check them out!

DECEMBER IN REVIEW

We hope everyone had happy holidays filled with friends, family, and cheer!  With the start of the new year, we are feeling refreshed and invigorated to bring you more of the exciting walks, talks, and programs you love and to continue protecting as much open space and undeveloped land as possible before it is lost forever.  Thank you for your support!

Last month Wildlands invited Heidi Ricci and Stefani Covino of Mass. Audubon to present their new tool MAPPR, developed in partnership with the Nature Conservancy and LandVest.  This user-friendly GIS-based program allows people without GIS skills to find land with the highest conservation value at the parcel level.  We hope many of the Conservation agents, commissioners, and open space committee members will have found this tool useful in conservation planning.

Many thanks to a generous supporter who donated two benches to the Great River Preserve in Bridgewater in memory of his dog.  The benches now provide a nice resting point for walkers and trail users to take in the beautiful scenery of the Great River.

We had so much fun at our last volunteer appreciation event, a waffle breakfast party.  We are so grateful for our tremendous volunteers that help us out all year long, and we love being able to give back and show we care!  Keep an eye out for our next volunteer appreciation event this Spring.

Want to become a Wildlands Trust volunteer?
Visit our Volunteer page to learn more.

This year marked the first CommuniTree project in Plymouth in which community non-profit and service organizations created hand-made ornaments to display on the downtown Christmas tree.  The only instructions were to make something that represents your organization, and is approximately the size of a toaster, and Wildlands was more than happy to come up with the ornament pictured above.  Many thanks to Frank Mand and the many others that made this unique project possible.

Community Garden 2.0

We want your input!

Wildlands Trust hosted a fun and successful Community Garden at our Duxbury office, and we would like to bring the same thing with us here in Plymouth.  We are currently working hard to ensure our garden plans are top-notch and fit community needs.  

We are asking all our supporters who are interested in having a garden plot or participating in our gardening programs to fill out a survey to make sure we are providing the type of garden you want and the programs that interest you.

Surveys will be accepted through the month of January.  If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the project, please email us at stewarship@wildlandstrust.org.