Massachusetts Urban Conservancy

At A Glance

Location: 

Easthampton, Massachusetts

Primary Issue Area:

  • Climate Change & Energy
  • Land & Water
  • Environmental Health

Active since:

2025

  • photo of a tract of overgrown urban land, from street view.
  • Photo of land showing closeup of knotweed, an invasive plant
  • photo of semi-wild land showing large logs strewn throughout.
  • sky view photo of MUC land in Randolph, MA, with the rectangular plot outlined and highlighted.

Our Purpose

Our purpose is to prevent, forestall and mitigate the impacts of climate change by supporting urban areas to become denser and wild areas to become wilder. Our model involves acquiring small, unbuildable plots of land in urban areas – preferably environmental justice communities – through donation, and protecting them from development as permanent green spaces, transforming them into healthy ecosystems and pollinator habitats with thriving biodiversity, and using them for nature educational purposes. Broadly, we aim to build support for biodiversity by bringing nature to cities and demonstrating its far-reaching benefits. We focus on urban areas for several reasons: 1) cities are losing biodiversity and pollinator habitat faster than other region types; 2) green space is sorely lacking in urban spaces, especially in environmental justice communities; 3) the benefits of establishing semi-wild green space in urban neighborhoods are surprisingly widespread, from improving local economies (lower costs of living), health outcomes (less pollution and heat island effect) and academic performance to increasing social interaction, decreasing noise and light pollution and enriching lives by providing nearby access to nature. We also seek to partner with nearby schools' science teachers to develop curricula including field trips to our green space "living laboratories," to teach about a range of nature, photosynthesis, climate change and horticultural topics.