Page 9 - wildlands 2024 spring Newsletter v2_Neat

Not all court cases go Wildlands’ way. In 2019, we believed a Duxbury landowner violated the terms of our Conservation
Restriction on the property. The judge disagreed. The dispute cost significant time and resources, but win or lose, we upheld our
end of the bargain with the people and places we serve.

“Our approach is always to work with people to resolve conflict, hoping they will meet us partway,” said Wildlands President Karen
Grey. “The last thing we want is to get involved in costly legal battles, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. We are custodians of public
lands, and it is our job to protect the conservation values on these properties.”

A final example underscores the complexity of conflict in nature, and the rarity of easy answers. In Kingston, a Wildlands preserve
was the site of homeless encampments since at least 2016. Until 2020, our stewardship staff worked regularly with Kingston police
to remove encampments from the preserve. But when COVID-19 forced us to scale back our monitoring efforts, the situation
worsened, leading to tense and heartbreaking encounters by Wildlands stewards in the field. Against this backdrop of poverty and
loss, the environmental impact of encampments can feel trivial. But once again, Wildlands’ legal, ethical, and moral duty was to
steward the land for specific conservation values, including ecological health and public recreation. These, Wildlands is equipped
to address; homelessness, we are not.

“Sometimes, our personal values conflict with our professional values,” said Director of Field Operations Erik Boyer. “As people,
we hold compassion for humans who struggle in our communities. As an organization, we must ensure the health and safety of all
people and natural resources on our preserves.”

In fall 2023, the Kingston Board of Health issued
Wildlands a citation for the encampments on
our property. This legal and financial pressure
spurred us to escalate our response. In December,
Wildlands and an abutting landowner hired
a heavy equipment contractor to clear both
properties, resulting in the removal of 20 tons
of trash costing upwards of $30,000. So far,
encampments have not returned.

Unfortunately, the homelessness problem is only
growing, as will its impact on conservation lands
statewide. According to the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development, more than
19,000 people in Massachusetts experienced
homelessness on one night in January 2023, up 27 A Plymouth resident used a Wildlands preserve as a personal dump in 2020.
percent from 2007 and 23 percent from just the
previous year. In February, Wildlands co-hosted
conservation professionals across the state in
an honest conversation around this issue. While
solutions were few, establishing this line of peer-
to-peer communication will help us elect the most
effective and empathetic course of action the next
time we confront this challenge.

“Land conservation is not for the faint of heart,”
Karen Grey concluded. “From the outside, our
work may seem like a peaceful stroll through
the woods. But behind the scenes, our team is
constantly working to keep our promise to protect
the special places of Southeastern Massachusetts.
We spend substantial resources preparing for
major conflicts so that when they do come, we’re
ready to defend our mission.”

Personal belongings abandoned at a homeless encampment on a Kingston preserve in 2023. 9