VOICED By RAM O N A P E T E R S
DJ GLISSON, II / FIREFLY IMAGEWORKS
< Ramona Peters on a recent visit to Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve.
Land Can Bring Peace RAMONA PETERS IS CHAIR OF THE NATIVE LAND CONSERVANCY, THE FIRST NATIVE-RUN LAND CONSERVATION GROUP EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. THIS ESSAY IS ADAPTED FROM A PRESENTATION SHE GAVE TO THE LAND TRUST COMMUNITY IN JUNE 2021. I am a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. We are first contact people; our home territory is where the Mayflower landed. It was sort of a dream to have a way in which Indigenous people could get land back. The Native Land Conservancy (based in Mashpee, Massachusetts) has an all-Indigenous board so that our worldview is represented in the policies we make about acquiring land, restoring it, and also how we share it. Five different tribal groups are represented on our board. 12
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S AV I NG L A ND M A G A ZIN E FALL 2021
One of our major efforts is to provide access for our people to revisit the lands of our ancestors. We’ve heard many stories about the past and things that happened in certain areas. There are many special places that are still of great importance to us. We have acquired some land but not as much as we would like. We’re also gaining access to land through cultural respect agreements, which are actually easements in legal terms. Native people find themselves mistreated quite a bit when we enter the woods that are not our backyard. Even when we go on trails that are conservation land, we find ourselves confronted by someone questioning our right to be there or what we are up to. Having an actual agreement with a conservation trust, private landowner or municipality is a way of protecting our people, especially during ceremony. We want to go and commune in special places, to give respect, to collect plants and medicines that grow only in specific areas, and to do this without harassment or interference or even being observed in some cases. The Dennis Conservation Land Trust shares special access with us at Chase Garden Creek, 250 acres of uplands and wetlands on Cape Cod Bay. It’s the closest parcel where we can freely do ceremonies, to say greetings and give thanks to the right whales that come in during the summer. Another friend is Northeast Wilderness Trust (NEWT). We have an MOU with them to facilitate certain ceremonies and journeys that we would like to do on their marvelous 322 acres of pine woodlands at Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve in Kingston, Massachusetts. There are not many spaces around here as big and vast, so having that level of experience in the woods is something we dream of. They also launched a program this summer for Indigenous interns. We are working with NEWT in a number of ways to try to understand the future, to learn things together about what the future might look like for all of us in light of the climate crisis. How will we behave on the land? And something amazing happened recently: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has included special language in its conservation restriction purposes that includes access for Indigenous cultural landscapes— places that have value to us, like springs and ponds and even certain slopes of hills that were used for food storage. It also includes provisions for ceremonies and cultural practices and sustainable harvesting of plant life. I’m still in awe, this is wonderful news—we need this. I think land has the power to generate peace. No matter what state of mind you are in, if you find yourself out in the woods or near the water, peace will come to you relatively quickly. P
