Buzzards Bay Coalition makes its ‘largest-ever’ purchase of property

The Buzzards Bay Coalition has announced the acquisition of 1,652 acres of land from the Slocum-Gibbs Cranberry Company for $9.5 million— the largest-ever purchase in the coalition’s history. 

The land will be permanently protected as open space and will officially open to the public in the spring of 2027. 

“The vision of the coalition is to make these lands, these natural landscapes, accessible wherever possible,” said Scott Lajoie, communications director.

The newly purchased land extends through areas of Carver, Wareham, Rochester and Middleboro. It includes “vast forested uplands, cranberry bogs and floodplain wetlands,” along two bordering areas of the Weweantic and Sippican rivers. 

“[These natural habitats] do a lot of work naturally to keep pollution out of the rivers that lead into the bay,” said Brendan Annett, vice president of Watershed Protection for the coalition. 

The purchase includes multiple acres of existing cranberry bogs. The coalition plans for 165 of these bogs to be retired and ecologically restored to their original state as wetlands.

Another 35+ acres of viable cranberry bogs will be used “to continue agricultural operations where feasible,” according to a press release.

“The highest-producing and environmentally friendly bogs will continue to be harvested, maintaining the heritage of farming on this land,” according to the coalition.

The remaining acreage is already natural landscape, Annett said.

John “Gary” Garretson III, owner of the Slocum-Gibbs Cranberry Company in Carver and third-generation operator of the farm, sold the land to the coalition. Garretson and his family decided conservation should be the company’s next step.

“They made this decision in the face of huge pressure to convert the land to residential development, or sand and gravel mining, or clearcutting for solar arrays,” Mark Rasmussen, president of the Buzzards Bay Coalition, said in the release. 

The purchase between Garretson and the coalition has been in the works since April 2024, said Annett.

Garretson received the Buzzards Bay Guardian Award — the organization’s highest honor — for conserving the land and for his role in the purchase. Annett described Garretson’s “legacy of conservation” as a “model.” 

“We’re going to continue to do this type of thing and to continue to work with willing landowners who are looking for options for selling their land when it’s time to do that,” Annett said. “We want to be an alternative option to development.”

The coalition partnered with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program and the towns of Carver and Wareham for the purchase. 

Funding sources include the federal and state governments, local community preservation funds and private donations. 

Because of the purchase, the land will now be “permanently protected by conservation restrictions” upheld by partner organizations including the Wareham and Carver Conservation Commissions, Rochester Land Trust and the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, according to the release.

“So while we own the property, we’ve coordinated for other entities to permanently protect the conservation values of the property,” Annett said.

Annett said this process is not unique to the newly purchased property and the coalition enters into these “conservation restriction” agreements for all of its projects. 

The coalition will begin a “planning and assessment process” as its next step. This includes evaluating how to conduct ecological restoration on the retired bogs and how to use the land publicly. Current plans include opening up trailheads on the property. 

The coalition — an organization devoted to restoring and protecting Buzzards Bay – seeks to purchase land that improves the watershed and helps to conserve land from development.

It recently finished restoration of former cranberry bogs for its new Mattapoisett nature preserve, named the Bogs, as previously reported by the Light in December 2024.

Crystal Yormick, a journalism student at Boston University, is a summer intern at The New Bedford Light. She can be reached at cyormick@newbedfordlight.org.