Wareham Land Trust to celebrate 25 years of conservation and nature education in 2026

In 2001, a small group of Wareham residents saw more and more of the town’s natural landscape being taken away for development and they decided someone needed to protect land in Wareham.

This call-to-action created the Wareham Land Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving land, educating the public and building community around nature and 2026 marks the non-profit’s 25th year in operation.

“All of us truly believe in our mission of preserving land and educating the community on why nature is important,” land trust president and member since 2006 Sue McCombe said.

Since 2001, McCombe said the land trust’s overall mission hasn’t changed but substantial progress has been made in recent years when the land trust hired its first full-time employees.

“It was getting really difficult to do things and do them properly,” she said. “Before we hired our first executive director I felt as though we weren't getting anywhere because we didn’t have the capacity to do the work.”

The land trust's first executive director, Elise Leduc-Fleming, was named in 2021 and today, that role is held by Alexandra Zollo who has been the executive director since late 2024. The organization has also hired Julia Ledo as their community coordinator after she volunteered with the land trust for two years.

“We’ve had more first timers on our walks in the past year than ever,” Zollo said. “We’ve had really wonderful attendance at our programs and we’ve been trying to reach the community in a lot of different ways.”

Thanks to an increased number of volunteers, McCombe said the land trust has been able to organize more stewardship efforts to maintain the nearly 700 acres of conservation land in town.

“We’re in a much better place to steward properties and we can do that even better than before,” McCombe said.

At the time of the non-profit’s founding, less than 3% of land in Wareham was protected, according to Zollo. Today, through their own efforts and partnerships with other organizations like Mass Audubon and the Buzzards Bay Coalition, the land trust has helped protect and conserve over 16% of land in town.

“I would say our biggest accomplishment truly is the land and spreading the word about the importance of conservation for the town,” Zollo said.

Moving into 2026, the land trust is aiming to complete a number of projects to cross the 700 acre threshold. One of the projects on the horizon is the River Walk Conservation Area project, a 19.37 acre parcel that once the purchase is finalized, will create a 50 acre stretch of protected land.

Voters approved allocating $1.2 million out of the Community Preservation Fund, a pool of money which is collected through a surtax on property values over $100,000, to help the land trust pay for the purchase.

And anniversary celebrations will happen throughout the year. McCombe said there are going to be a number of big events in 2026 to celebrate 25 years of work.