Native-led land conservation accepting the honor to protect, share, and restore land and water for the four-legged, the two-legged, the winged, and the finned
Rescuing land through donation or title purchase, upholding conservation easements, and tending to its needs.
It is not enough to simply save the land but also to preserve the culture that has thrived upon it for thousands of years.
Located in the ancestral homeland of eastern Algonquin tribes including the Abenaki, Nipmuc, and Pocumtuck, this 54-acres in Hawley, Massachusetts was donated to Native Land Conservancy in July of 2025 cleanly and unencumbered by restrictions of any kind by Sienna Valente-Blough and Eddie Anderson. It was the couple’s desire to rematriate the land they called “The Forgotten Forest” to Indigenous hands with no expectation for anything in return.
“We knew that something was missing in our relationship to the land. It was something that we as a society, in a colonized world, had forgotten,” she said.During the summer the land is flush with flora, notably marsh marigold, Solomon seal, hobble bush, and Jacobs ladder from the wetlands to the meadows to the woodlands fragrant with cedar. A series of stone walls and large swaths of white quartz bisect the groves of maples - sugar, red, striped and moose varieties and a healthy population of yellow birch. It is a habitat for many animals including fox and deer, and some rather cute porcupine that lumber slow and unassuming of the barred owls overhead. The overgrowth of the summer obscures many natural pathways but fall peels back a curtain leading to a black bear highway that cuts across the top of the property and is common to the good-natured beasts.
This workshop is for land owners who are considering land conservation. Come learn about the process and the potential local, state and federal tax benefits.
