Land and Water Acknowledgement

For millennia before and in the centuries since Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Emerald Necklace park system for a rapidly industrializing city and metropolitan area, the lands and waters of and around Greater Boston have served as a site of exchange among communities including the Massachusett, Pawtucket, Wampanoag and Nipmuc peoples. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy acknowledges the Greater Boston region as their unceded ancestral territories. This acknowledgement is a starting point toward right relations with Indigenous neighbors and their understandings of land stewardship.

The parks the Conservancy stewards are in jurisdictions managed by civic partners who offer the following recognitions and resources:

From the City of Boston, see here.

From the Town of Brookline, see here and here.

From the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, see resources and services provided by the Commission on Indian Affairs:

Why does this acknowledgement matter?

Foremost, we seek to honor our Massachusett, Wampanoag and Nipmuc neighbors. Their legacies can help to re-center our understanding of what “stewardship of shared spaces” can mean. Knowing and respecting this history can guide our future park land and water use as it relates to our collective health, connection to each other and the broader ecosystem.

To share in this learning:

Here is a story of a decades long project that celebrates Indigenous use of what was once the Back Bay, now home to many parts of the Emerald Necklace Park System.

Here is a story of a new collaboration with the Herring Pond Wampanoag community to connect Plymouth’s next generation to their cultural history.

This page will be updated with further resources. (September 2022)