What
we do.
Photo: Above Summit
We enjoy and care for more than 120 special places - roughly 47,000 acres - all around Massachusetts.
For more than a century, The Trustees has been on the ground in communities across Massachusetts, working to protect special places, providing loving care of our reservations, building creative new programs to engage people, and sharing our expertise with neighbors and partners across the state.
Our Mission
The Trustees of Reservations preserve, for public use and enjoyment, places of exceptional scenic, historical, and ecological value.
on this page
Our Areas of Focus
Land Conservation and Stewardship
The centerpiece of the Trustees mission is protecting places of ecological, scenic, and historic importance. We search far and wide to find Massachusetts’ most potentially endangered iconic landscapes and precious cultural relics, navigate the complex and long path to bring them under our protection, and allocate land stewardship resources and expertise to maintain their integrity long into the future.
Coast & Ecology
From salt marshes to barrier beaches, from floodplain forests to pitch pine barrens, Massachusetts possesses an array of rich environments. We’re devoted to protecting biodiverse landscapes throughout the Commonwealth, using strategies tailored to the specific needs of each place that ensure their vitality for future generations.
Art & Museums
Art and culture are part of the Trustees’ origin story. Now, through exhibitions, displays, events, performances, and other curated programs, we seek to harness arts and culture to enhance and elevate the visitor experience at Trustees properties.
Agriculture
Our agricultural work includes the preservation of farmland, engaging in agricultural production across a network of five community farms, providing farmland access to Massachusetts producers, managing extensive community gardens in the City of Boston and using our community farms as platforms for engaging the public in understanding farming as a natural climate solution.
Advocacy
When lawmakers introduce public policy, we make sure land conservation and historic preservation are taken into account. We build relationships at all levels of government, offer guidance and input, and ensure that the crucial work in our sphere—environmental agencies, climate-mitigating restoration projects, and much more—have the resources to be effective.
Horticulture
Our work in horticulture—the art and science of cultivating plants—includes the preservation, restoration, and expansion of immersive gardens across the state. We look to preserve significant historic designs while infusing new techniques to deepen our gardens’ resiliency. These spaces invite connections with nature through their beauty, diversity, and vibrancy, and we believe our gardens can connect visitors to the past, improve the present, and build a more sustainable, healthy, and beautiful future.
Historic Collections
We go beyond convention by sharing diverse perspectives, amplifying marginalized voices, and finding creative, unexpected ways of conveying fascinating stories as well as our rich array of artifacts and resources.