This story first appeared in the Cape Cod Times on November 18, 2024.

KINGSTON, MA—With a recent gift of 33 acres of land in Kingston from a regional land trust, Native Land Conservancy in Mashpee now holds almost 100 acres across seven Massachusetts towns.

Prior to this gift, the Conservancy held titles to about 65 acres in Mashpee, Yarmouthport, Easton, Barnstable, New Salem, and Aquinnah.

“This donation from Northeast Wilderness Trust serves to deepen our relationship as neighbors,” said Conservancy Founding President Ramona Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. “And gives us the opportunity to care for these lands in our fullest capacity as Indigenous land protectors.”

The 322-acre Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve, owned by Northeast Wilderness Trust, that abuts the 33 acres of land recently gifted to Native Land Conservancy.

The 33 acres joins with the Conservancy’s 32-acre Wampanoag Common Lands at Muddy Pond in Kingston and the abutting 322-acre Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve, owned by the trust, also in Kingston.

“Working together with the Native Land Conservancy has been an enriching experience for Northeast Wilderness Trust,” said Jon Leibowitz, the trust president and CEO. “Our partnership with NLC has secured habitat and freedom for the wild creatures who call these places home.” The trust is based in Vermont.

The newly donated lands represent a portion of the Wampanoag’s ancestral homelands, according to the Conservancy. The land is also part of the rare Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens and habitat for four-legged, winged, and finned creatures including garter snakes, bats, coyotes, red-tailed hawks, and wood frogs.

What will the Conservancy do with the land?

The Conservancy plans to permanently conserve the 33 acres, according to a press release.

Alongside the donation, the trust is also conveying a forever-wild conservation easement, which is pending approval from the commonwealth. The easement would be located on the trust’s Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve.

In reciprocation, the Conservancy will convey a forever-wild conservation easement on the lands gifted by the Trust.

A conservation easement, according to the National Conservation Easement Database, is a legal agreement between a landowner and a conservation organization or government agency that limits how a property can be developed. A conservation easement can protect the land’s conservation values, such as the quality of water or the preservation of forests and agricultural lands.

Conservancy holds land in areas across the state

Among its purchases, in 2023, the Conservancy bought the Aquinnah Shop Restaurant and surrounding land on Martha’s Vineyard for $2 million, with plans to return the land in perpetuity to the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).