Two Coastal Properties in Mattapoisett Conserved
In the last couple of months, the Buzzards Bay Coalition has helped facilitate the protection of two coastal properties in Mattapoisett.
Three Mattapoisett residents from the Jenney family, which has owned Strawberry Point since the early 1930s, recently donated 26 acres of coastal landscape, including beaches, dunes, salt marsh, and the Pine Islands (a portion of which is pictured above), to the Mattapoisett Land Trust. The land abuts existing MLT-owned open space on Pine Island Pond.
The family also requested that the Coalition hold a conservation restriction on their donation, in order to provide ‘double protection’ of the land in perpetuity.
“Our family has cherished these lands for three generations for camping, hiking, and enjoying the natural beauty of the landscape and wildlife. We want them protected in their natural, wild state for many, many generations to come,” Faith Ball, one of the former owners, told Sippican Week.
“These waterfront properties, with frontage along the Mattapoisett River and Buzzards Bay, contain coastal salt marsh as well as the adjacent upland areas that will allow these critical habitats to adapt and persist as sea levels continue to rise,” said John Gioia, Director of Land Protection at the Coalition.
A view of Pine Islands at Strawberry Point.
The Mattapoisett Land Trust plans to develop trails along these lands soon.
The other is on the west side of town: 11.25 acres of land on the banks of the Mattapoisett River Estuary just south of Route 6. The current landowners, who own a house on the land, donated a conservation restriction on the undeveloped acreage; the restriction will be co-owned by the Coalition and Mattapoisett Land Trust.
These kind of coastal properties are exactly what will be needed in the future to aid in salt marsh migration. As marshes attempt to respond to rising sea levels it is critical that they have undeveloped upland areas behind them to expand into. Preservation of such parcels on the Bay is a top priority of the Coalition’s land conservation efforts.