In March 2022, Wildlands Trust received an anonymous grant from a private foundation to fund the initial planning and design stages of a significant revitalization project proposed for Brockton’s 700-acre D.W. Field Park. Working collaboratively with city officials, including the Mayor’s Office, and several community-based and statewide partners, the conservation organization says the proposed project will provide much-needed improvements to the well-utilized open space and recreation area over the next 5 to 7 years.
Wildlands Starts the New Year with a Return to Remote Activities
By Amy Markarian, Senior Copywriter
The start of a new calendar year provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the previous year's successes and challenges, and look ahead with hope to new goals and plans for the year to come. As we reported in our Fall/Winter 2021 Newsletter, Wildlands Trust ended 2021 with much excitement about the addition of our new staff members, and we had optimistically begun a post-Covid return to in-person programming.
However, if there's one thing we've learned in the last two years, it is that thriving under challenging circumstances requires both an ability to adapt and a willingness to change! This month, in response to the surge in Covid-19 cases in Southeastern Massachusetts, Wildlands Trust made the decision to, once again, reduce our in-person interactions until it is safer for the members of our community to be together.
At this time, Wildlands' staff members are working in a hybrid model, utilizing both remote work and scheduled time in the office as needed, and our board meetings are being conducted remotely until further notice. Additionally, all indoor programming has been canceled or moved outdoors. In order to keep our community connected and our members active throughout another challenging winter, Wildlands' programming team is working hard to increase outdoor and virtual program options. Please be sure to check our website and social media pages regularly to stay up-to-date with the latest information about upcoming events!
We've done this before, and we can do it again! Wildlands Trust is committed to weathering the world's changing circumstances with you, and we will (again) look forward to seeing each other in-person soon!
New Compost Units Built for Community Garden
In October 2020, Plymouth Eagle Scout candidate Zach Lyons constructed two, new compost holding units for Wildlands’ community garden at Davis-Douglas Farm. Prior to Zach’s help, there was a single-cylinder compost bin at the garden that was only accessible from above, making it difficult to turn. The new containers, built using lumber and wire mesh, are able to be accessed from the top and side of the unit, making it easier to work the compost. Each unit is also made up of two bays, allowing for the compost to be divided by how far along in composition it is.
We look forward to putting these structures to good use during the 2021 gardening season, and having a more productive composting system in place for our community gardeners. Thank you to Lowes in Wareham for donating the lumber used, and to Zach for his hard work!
New Trail Configuration at Pudding Hill
By Stewardship Manager Erik Boyer
Mike Arsenault assists stewardship staff with raking debris from the trail.
This past September, with the help of nine Adopt-a-Preserve (AAP) volunteers, a new .4-mile trail was created at Pudding Hill Reservation in Marshfield. This project was the vision of AAP volunteer Dodie Frank who has been a steward at Pudding Hill for the past two years.
I met Dodie out at the preserve on a muggy, July morning to bushwhack and flag a new trail from the neighborhood trail entrance off Old Ocean Street to a dead-end trail on the west side of the property. We chose a route that consisted of rolling hills, old stone walls and thick stands of white pine saplings. This new connector turns the .5-mile cross-shaped trail into a 1.1-mile loop with varied topography. Over the course of three days in September, we cut through thick brush, established a rough trail tread, and then regraded sections of the trail to make for easier hiking. We then blazed the path and ensured it was ready for the first guided hike held at the property in mid-October.
Now, thanks to the hard work of many, a visit to Pudding Hill provides for a challenging, wooded, 30-minute hike on the north side of the property and a leisurely, short stroll through a meadow to an overlook spot on Chandlers Pond. I would like to give a special shout out to Dodie for her efforts and to Mike Arsenault, Stephen Connolly, Rob MacDonald, Janine Anderson, Bill Vickstrom, Roger Janson, Marilynn Atterbury and Kevin Walsh for helping out.
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.