A Roadmap for Land Trusts to Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

This working paper outlines a comprehensive roadmap for how land trusts can strengthen their role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Mount Grace serves twenty-three towns in north central Massachusetts and has conserved more than forty thousand acres over four decades. As climate pressures intensify across the region, Mount Grace has focused its work to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land justice.

Mount Grace has integrated climate action throughout its recent strategic plan by committing to nature-based climate solutions, community-centered conservation, and equitable approaches to conservation. Mount Grace grounds its climate work in three guiding questions: how to reduce its own contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, how to steward land in ways that build ecological resilience, and how to focus land conservation where it can support regional adaptation.

The paper describes Mount Grace’s efforts to lower its organizational emissions through energy-efficient building renovations, hybrid work policies, adoption of remote monitoring technology, and installation of onsite renewable energy. After a carbon footprint assessment revealed that most emissions came from staff commuting and site visits, Mount Grace has reduced emissions through remote site monitoring and increasing its office buildings’ energy efficiency. Mount Grace aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 without counting the carbon sequestered on conserved lands.

The climate challenges facing the Mount Grace region include shifts in seasonality, intensifying storms, threats to forests and farms, and the growing likelihood of climate migration. The paper explains how these pressures affect various ecosystems, local economies, public health, and municipal infrastructure. The author highlights the importance of managing forests, wetlands, and rivers as natural climate solutions that must be conserved with long-term resilience in mind.

Stewardship is a central focus of this paper and of Mount Grace’s climate work. Mount Grace has adapted its monitoring to track climate impacts over time, integrated satellite-based remote monitoring to expand stewardship capacity, and implemented climate-smart forestry methods on its conservation areas. Projects outlined in the paper include creation of slash walls to improve forest regeneration, development of early successional habitat to support survival of threatened bird species, removal of invasive species, and long-term ecological monitoring using satellite data.

A significant element of Mount Grace’s work described by this paper is the incorporation of Indigenous leadership and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into land stewardship. Mount Grace collaborates closely with the Nipmuc community through cultural respect easements, cultural inventories, shared management planning, and paid opportunities for Indigenous land stewards, interns, and community members. This work supports the broader Land Back movement and emphasizes the importance of restoring Indigenous cultural and ecological relationships as a climate resilience strategy.

The paper also outlines Mount Grace’s strategic conservation approach, including use of statewide biodiversity and resilience mapping, assessment of solar development risks, and efforts to integrate housing and agricultural viability into conservation decisions.

Finally, Mount Grace is committed to community outreach as an essential part of climate action. The organization engages local residents, volunteers, municipalities, and partner organizations through education, collaborative planning, monitoring initiatives, and community events. Its long history of regional collaboration provides a strong foundation for collective climate resilience planning.

Overall, this paper demonstrates how a regional land trust like Mount Grace can expand its influence on climate action through strategic planning, innovative stewardship, attention to justice, and deep partnerships with its community.