Conservation for All

Reimagining the Role of Land Trusts in Environmental Justice Communities—An Interview with Karen Grey of Wildlands Trust

Editor’s Note: Raised in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts, where “kids were taught that bad things happen in the woods,” Karen Grey shares her unlikely path to becoming a champion for environmental justice and land conservation in Brockton and other communities throughout southeastern Massachusetts. Today, Karen serves as the President of Wildlands Trust, where she is redefining the role of land trusts in urban communities. I had the pleasure of talking with her about the Wildlands Trust’s ground-healing work in the communities they serve.

Marissa Latshaw (ML): What guides the work you do at Wildlands Trust?

Karen Grey (KG): We believe the time has come for land trusts to be more creative and thoughtful about how we serve and whom we serve. For the past 12 years, Wildlands Trust has learned that a land trust can have an enormous impact that goes beyond simply protecting land in wealthy, predominantly white communities. My hope is that our experiences and learnings working in an urban environmental justice community will provide a path forward for other land trusts and communities.

ML: Can you tell us a bit about Wildlands Trust?

KG: We are a regional land trust that spans a 1,700 square mile area extending from the Cape Cod Canal north to Milton and west to the Rhode Island border. Within our region we work with 57 very different cities and towns, helping them implement their own locally developed open space priorities. Most of these towns have open space plans wherein local people have worked hard to set forth priority land protection objectives. For example, in Middleborough farmland protection is a priority. In Plymouth, the priority is the sole-source drinking water supply. In Duxbury, it’s salt marsh and bogs, and in Brockton, the largest city in our region, it’s about urban parks and green spaces.

Wildlands Trust got started 51 years ago when the Town of Plymouth agreed to host a nuclear power plant. Real estate taxes were expected to stay very low, and residents were fearful of a land grab by out-of-town developers. This fear led to a weekly gathering of concerned citizens at a local airport canteen, which gave rise to the idea that became Wildlands Trust.

Today, Wildlands Trust has 370 parcels of protected land in our portfolio, just over 14,000 acres. We have a staff of 12 people and a board of 17. And the nuke plant is currently being decommissioned!

ML: How do you work with the communities you serve?

KG: We don’t approach our work with a one-size-fits-all secret recipe. However, if there is any one constant throughout our coverage area, it is trust. Communities want to work with you when you show up and earn their trust. At Wildlands Trust, we view ourselves as a community service organization that is in the land business. We exist to serve others, not to impose our ideas and agendas. This is especially important when working in environmental justice communities, which need our support.

I encourage other land trusts to take steps, whatever steps they are comfortable with, to open programming to new and diverse audiences. I feel strongly that our collective efforts must go beyond DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies and statements because the social inequities around land are significant. And in so many ways, our organizations have perpetuated these inequities, albeit unintentionally. Many, if not most, of our early land trusts were started in high-net-worth, predominantly white communities or neighborhoods. Some may have been given a piece of land by a wealthy family, while others were able to secure early properties with the support of wealthy neighbors. And for the most part, we have stayed on this trajectory—wealthy white communities have been the primary beneficiaries of conservation work. We need to challenge ourselves to do more. At Wildlands Trust, we call it mission maturity.

“Be guided by your principles, convictions, and cultural sensitivity. Embrace a constant cycle of learning and adapting. When you make a mistake, apologize, correct, and keep moving forward. We are all learning—so don’t give up!”

ML: How have these inequities played out?

KG: The best example I know of is a University of Rhode Island study that looked at who benefitted from the added value of Massachusetts residential properties when the property is located within a quarter of a mile of conservation land. Between 1998 and 2016, subject properties increased in value by $62 million. Ninety-one percent of added value went to white households, and 43 percent of added value went to high-net-worth white households.

ML: Inequities are deeply ingrained in our culture, and are often complex to reverse. What can be done?

KG: It’s not easy because there are no cookie cutters and there are no recipes for addressing inequities around land. There are only ideas, and my hope is that our work in the city of Brockton will inspire other organizations and communities to develop their own new ideas for broadening their programming to serve more people.

*Brockton is the most densely populated city or town in Plymouth County.* Courtesy of Wildlands Trust

ML: Why Brockton?

KG: Brockton is the largest Gateway City in our coverage area, but beyond that, the Brockton story is somewhat personal for me. My career path was not inspired by a youth rich with natural world experiences. I am from a middle-class family, and I was raised in the city of Brockton. There was no summer camp, no beach house, no posh travel.

Nature to me was a pocket park with a few swings, a couple of tennis courts, and a row of shade trees along the perimeter. I never even thought about nature, except for the woods a block away from my house, a place we were taught to fear and were warned to stay away from. I could have gotten to junior high school in about one-third of the time if my parents had allowed me to walk through those woods—but city kids were taught that bad things happen in the woods.

ML: Please tell us how you came to be a champion for connecting people and natural spaces.

KG: I knew very little about land trusts and their work when I was tapped for my job in 2008. I found myself sitting in a goat shed that served as the Wildlands Trust office, sorting through the files of my predecessor. I was surprised and highly amused when I found a tattered manila folder labeled “Brockton Audubon,” which seemed like an oxymoron. As far as I could tell, there was nothing “Audubon” about the city I grew up in.

When I started, the playbook at Wildlands Trust had been very focused, yet rudimentary, like many land trusts: Protect land (usually in wealthier towns), build trails, and offer guided hikes from time to time. That is, until the Brockton project came along and challenged us to rethink how we delivered our mission. And that brings me back to the manila folder in the goat shed.

Much to my disbelief, Brockton Audubon was a real thing! It had been around since 1925, and had protected 126 acres of undeveloped land in the northwest corner of the city. The preserve had been pieced together from seven remnant parcels set aside from old farms so the Brockton Audubon Society members would have a place to go birding. Inactive and nearly defunct, the organization in 2008 was in the hands of two remaining trustees both nearing their 90th birthdays.

ML: What happened next?

KG: I reached out to the trustees and started a conversation about their plans for the land. I learned that they were besieged by developers, and they were being courted by two much larger statewide conservation groups. But in the end, I was able to earn their trust, largely because of our shared associations in Brockton. In 2010, Wildlands Trust became the owner in fee of this last significant piece of open space in Brockton. Today this land comprises 28 percent of the city’s public green space.

ML: For those of us who haven’t been to Brockton, can you give us a little background about the city?

KG: Brockton is a Gateway City, a designation for former industrial hubs that served as access, or “gateway,” to the American dream, largely because of the availability of good jobs and an abundance of affordable housing. My great-grandfather was a cobbler in Sweden, and when he brought his family of eight to the United States in 1906, they headed from Ellis Island to Brockton where he could find a Lutheran Church, a home for his family, and a job in the shoe factories. Our story is similar to those of many others who came to Brockton at that time.

Twenty other Massachusetts cities share the Gateway City designation, most having long ago lost their manufacturing and industrial bases. Today, these cities deal with a disproportionate share of poverty, pollution, crime, and deteriorating infrastructure. Most Gateway Cities are very densely populated and have limited open land left.

In Brockton 68 percent of the population is non-white. Thirty percent of the population is foreign born, and 17 percent of the population lives below the poverty level. It is one of the 10 poorest communities in Massachusetts, and 98 percent of the city is an environmental justice census block—which means that household income is disproportionately low, minority groups make up 40 percent or more of the population, and English is not the first language for many of its residents.

ML: How did Wildlands Trust think about conservation in Brockton?

KG: Business as usual—protecting the land, building trails, clearing some parking spots, and waiting for the property to become discovered—was not going to work in Brockton. Our model for connecting people to land needed to be different here.

When we began our work in Brockton in 2010, there was not a lot of guidance around DEI concepts. We relied on our instincts, and in hindsight, they weren’t so bad. We made the choice to serve a broader constituency than is typically seen in the work of land trusts—this is diversity. By protecting this land, we were supporting the principle that people in Brockton deserved the same benefits of nature as people in wealthier communities—this is equity. By working to be culturally sensitive, we made deliberate efforts for our mission to have meaning and impact in an urban environment—this is inclusion, the hardest and most important piece to implement.

Inclusion is where the rubber meets the road. It is the work of leveraging diversity by ensuring that people have fair and meaningful ways to participate. Practicing inclusion is the real work of DEI, and the truth is that you don’t always get it right the first time.

“Communities want to work with you when you show up and earn their trust.”

ML: What are some examples of how you’re practicing inclusion in Brockton?

KG: There are many examples. I’ll share just a few.

Guided Walks

As I mentioned, city dwellers are often taught to fear the woods, so we led guided walks and staffed programs to introduce Brocktonians to the idea of walking on nature trails. This has led to many more people using the Brockton Audubon property than previously.

*Guided hikes at the Brockton Audubon Preserve introduce residents to the benefits of nature.* Photo courtesy of Wildlands Trust

Youth Programs

We engaged the community through its youth by working with high schools, middle schools, GED classes, ESL classes, and community colleges to expose urban youth to nature.

For example, we run Green Team, a summer service-learning program for Brockton High School students in which kids receive a stipend for working alongside farmers, foresters, biologists, and other natural resource professionals. Our goal is to introduce them to natural resource professions before they head off to college and pick a major.

We also built outdoor learning spaces at four Brockton elementary schools with our project partner, Manomet Conservation Sciences, and Wildlands Trust volunteers, and Brockton High students.

Urban Sanctuary

We established and now maintain, at no cost to the city, a 250-acre urban sanctuary in the northwest corner of Brockton, with over 4.5 miles of beautiful trails built by our land stewards and local volunteers.

Tree Planting

We also lead a state-funded tree planting program called “Greening the Gateway Cities,” an initiative to plant trees to cool the city and store carbon. So far, we have added 2,400 trees to the Brockton tree canopy. We are now expanding this work to the city of Taunton.

Nature Festival

In 2019, we held the first Brockton Nature Festival, an event that drew hundreds of people for food, music, vendors, and guided nature walks on restored lands.

ML: You’ve done so much to connect the community with nature. Can you tell us about the D.W. Field Park project?

KG: In the spring of 2021, I was contacted by a private foundation asking about our work in the city. I invited them to join me for a walk in D.W. Field Park so they could see firsthand the poor condition of the park, with its crumbling infrastructure, degraded ecological functioning, and lack of basic amenities. There was great potential—700 acres with seven miles of paved road for walking, running, and biking; several ponds; wooded trails; and a 65-foot stone observation tower. It is really the city’s only significant wildlife habitat. We talked with the foundation about our vision of leading a community planning initiative for its revitalization. It was all just a dream, and I had no idea how we would do it or where the funding would come from.

*D.W. Field Park.* Photo courtesy of Wildlands Trust

Fast forward two years. With the generous support of this foundation, Wildlands Trust has led an exhaustive, 24-month community-based planning initiative to develop a master plan for the revitalization of D.W. Field Park. This new initiative brings together engineers, planners, community organizers, green infrastructure experts, transportation planners, curriculum developers, restoration ecologists, and many others. The recently adopted plan identifies priorities for improving ecological functioning, built infrastructure, recreational amenities, and public programming, and we now have shovel-ready projects planned for park improvements.

In the meantime, we have partnered with the towns of Brockton and Avon to add 30 acres to the park. Wildlands Trust was able to bring private funding to match a state grant for this important land protection project.

ML: You’ve shared so many wonderful examples of how Wildlands Trust has engaged communities in connecting in meaningful ways with open spaces. What have you learned along the way that may help other land trusts and conservation organizations?

KG: Over the years, we have learned a lot about how to work in an environmental justice community. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been rewarding when we get it right.

Here are the lessons we learned:

Make it a goal to align programming ideas with the real needs in the community.
Reach out to schools who want and need your help.
Bring financial resources to the table that directly benefit the community and enable people to fully participate in your programs. The Gateway Cities are poor. Brockton High School does not have funds for bus service to the state Envirothon competition. Brockton kids’ families don’t have cars to get them to summer programs. Many of them don’t have money for lunch if there’s a field trip. Kids don’t have hiking boots or rain gear. We try to help find resources however we can to make full participation possible.
Connect to the community and broaden the impact of your work through strategic partnerships with business associations, churches, youth agencies, hospitals, alternative schools, and neighborhood groups. Interesting, new partnerships are the most exciting part of this work.
Build trust with local leaders who will champion your work and open doors to the people you need to reach. Influential people in the city have helped us leverage many of our program ideas. Elected officials and city leaders understand that our work adds value to the lives of people in the city, and it does not cost the city a dime. We are bringing funds to the city that they would not have otherwise. We have built relationships with the planning council, state representatives, the mayor’s office, members of the city council, the conservation commission, the planning department, the parks department, and the schools.
Stay true to your mission but interpret it more broadly and creatively so you are positioned to serve real needs. There may not be large tracts of land to protect, but there are parks to be restored, trees to be planted, and people to be engaged.
This last lesson is probably the most important one: Observe and listen to people from the community. A local advisory group is a great way to get honest feedback and good ideas. And if you are going to ask for input, make sure you take it—at least some of it. Be guided by your principles, convictions, and cultural sensitivity. Embrace a constant cycle of learning and adapting. When you make a mistake, apologize, correct, and keep moving forward. We are all learning—so don’t give up!

ML: Any closing thoughts for us?

KG: Please remember that even though it’s harder and messier to carry out our land protection missions in environmental justice communities, it is some of the most rewarding work. I have several friends who work for larger environmental organizations, and one of them recently described a three-day session where wealthy foundations and philanthropists brought together large environmental NGOs to tease out the next big idea in conservation. There were billions of dollars on the table, and the desire to fund projects that will have a big splash. Hearing this as a land trust practitioner is crushing. We methodically go about our work with our meager budgets and poor access to mega philanthropy. We are not splashers and never will be.

In our hearts we know that land conservation work is about ripples, really important ripples that will always outlive the splash.

ML: Thank you, Karen, for so generously sharing the Brockton story and your learnings with us. Your collaborative community focus and innovative practices are an inspiration, showing what’s possible when determined people work together to create solutions that improve lives and protect nature. Your work exemplifies the integrated approach outlined in the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision.

Karen Grey has served as the President and Executive Director of Wildlands Trust since 2007, where she thoroughly enjoys her work at the intersection of beautiful land and extraordinary people.

Under her leadership, Wildlands Trust has significantly grown its protected lands, operating budget, endowment, staff, and programming. Karen’s vision and execution led to the creation of Davis-Douglas Farm, a transformational education facility and headquarters for Wildlands, and the Stewardship Training Center, a retreat and training facility operated by Wildlands to benefit land trusts and conservation groups throughout Massachusetts and beyond.

In addition to her role at Wildlands, Karen is committed to the community and has served as the Vice President of the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, Vice President of the South Shore Economic Development Council, and a board member of Historic O’Neil Farm in Duxbury. She began her conservation career at the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, where she held several senior leadership positions during her 17-year tenure.

Growing up in a Gateway City was a formative experience for Karen, and she continually works to discover new ways for Wildlands to impact underserved communities. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont and is incredibly grateful for her three amazing young adult sons.

Reimagining the Role of Land Trusts in Environmental Justice Communities—An Interview with Karen Grey of Wildlands Trust

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