HEATH — State and local conservation officials celebrated the protection of 465 acres in Heath and Colrain in a ceremony at Franklin Land Trust’s Branch View Barn on Thursday.
The land will be open to the public as the Stone Mountain Wildlife Management Area, and the conservation effort was financially supported by the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s 30×30 Catalyst Fund, marking a big step toward a regional goal of conserving a contiguous 5,400 acres of land by June 2027 through continued public-private partnerships.
“This permanent protection of nearly 500 acres here in Heath and in Colrain is really a tremendous accomplishment, and one that will have lasting benefits for wildlife habitat and for people for generations to come,” MassWildlife Director Eve Schlüter said.
Per information boards displayed at the event, this newly established wildlife management area helps protect wildlife, including rare and endangered animal species, and their habitats, while also boosting water-quality protection and opportunities for outdoor recreation. The MassWildlife website explains that wildlife management areas are free and open to the public for a variety of outdoor recreational purposes, like walking, hiking, fishing, trapping, hunting and wildlife viewing.
The Stone Mountain Wildlife Management Area joins several other protected landscapes in Franklin County, including MassWildlife’s Spur Brook Wildlife Management Area in Colrain, the Hinsdale Brook Wildlife Management Area in Shelburne, and the Zoar Wildlife Management Area in Charlemont and Rowe.
Although not in attendance for the celebration, Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement that Massachusetts is “home to some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the country,” and that there is a responsibility to protect this land.
“We’re protecting clean water, preserving wildlife habitats and creating more opportunities for people to enjoy the outdoors,” Healey said. “We’re grateful to our local and conservation partners for helping us protect these special places for generations to come.”
In addition to the Stone Mountain Wildlife Management Area, Franklin Land Trust completed its purchase of 47 acres of land at the former Branch View Farm property in May, bringing the total to 512 acres of contiguous protected land in Heath and Colrain.
Franklin Land Trust Executive Director Mary Lynn Sabourin said that with more than 500 acres conserved within the last year, this brings the goal of hitting 5,400 acres of protected land closer to reality. The land trust is in the process of securing an additional 800 acres by next summer.
“We look forward to continuing to collaborate with local landowners, and many of you … to protect this additional 800 acres by June of 2027, with funding support from [the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’] Landscape Partnership Grant, Mass Audubon’s Catalyst Fund and the Kestrel Land Trust,” Sabourin told attendees, eliciting cheers.
Speakers noted that the partnerships between the public agencies — the Department of Fish and Game, MassWildlife and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs — alongside Mass Audubon and Franklin Land Trust made the Stone Mountain Wildlife Management Area possible.
Tom O’Shea, commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game, explained that the state has a goal of protecting 30% of all state land and water by 2030, and that public agencies partnering with private organizations and landowners is what will make this goal possible.
“This is going to get us on the way there, and we want to make sure to include these sort of large landscapes that provide really important migration corridors,” O’Shea said.
The 30×30 Catalyst Fund was designed to help bolster that movement toward the state’s 2030 conservation goal, with a $25 million seed investment by the Natick software company MathWorks supporting the fund.
David O’Neill, president and CEO of Mass Audubon, spoke to how land conservation efforts are like a “puzzle,” with protected land not always being contiguous. To put the pieces together, O’Neill said it requires “all of us working together, hand-in-glove.”
O’Neill added that the reason for a pre-acquisition of the property by Mass Audubon came from the loss of federal support. According to a July 2025 statement from Mass Audubon, the Trump administration stripped the organization of its largest federal grant for $25 million, impacting the protection of 10,000 acres of forests and wetland in the Connecticut River Valley.
“That’s not right, and that’s what we’re facing today,” he said. “We all have to step up. We can complain about that or we can just take action, and what we’re about is taking action to protect the natural world.”
Despite that challenge, O’Neill said these hurdles to conservation work can be overcome, and that the 30×30 Catalyst Fund is making that possible.
“I hope you feel like this is like one team working together to do something that we couldn’t otherwise do on our own,” O’Neill said.
