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- By Chez Oxendine
- Real Estate
The Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe will establish a land trust to reclaim ancestral territory following its state recognition in Massachusetts and the acquisition of a six-acre plot just outside Plymouth.
Chairwoman Melissa Ferretti said the tribe plans to use both state recognition and the new land trust to restore Native stewardship over the land. The effort connects to the national Landback movement, which focuses on returning lands to Native guidance and traditional practices.
“When it comes to taking care of this land, we already have original instructions - we just need the time and space to use them,” Ferretti said.
The tribe's former reservation encompassed around 3,000 acres in the Plymouth area before allotments reduced the territory. The proposed trust will work to protect portions of these lands through donations and purchases, according to Ferretti.
“There's a sort of mistrust of tribes in the conservation world, so we were advised that maybe if you started a land trust for the benefit of the tribe to hold development restrictions, people are more likely to donate land,” Ferretti said. “Most people that do donate land want to see it conserved.”
Land trusts across the country manage roughly 61 million acres, according to Dr. Diana Ruiz, executive director for the Mashpee, Mass.-based Native Land Conservancy (NLC). The organization, governed by an all-Native board of directors, assists tribes like the Herring Pond Wampanoag with technical assistance and land trust development.
Land trusts such as the ones developed by NLC can open the door for co-stewardship opportunities, convey the land directly back to the tribes in question, or simply ensure that Indigenous access to the area, alongside culturally significant resources, is protected. Owing to a shared goal of conservation, these often serve as either intermediary steps for landback, or at the very least a way to ensure more land isn’t lost to development, Ruiz said.
“Land rematriation has existed as long as land loss,” Ruiz wrote in an email to Tribal Business News. “Whether signing over a deed, formalizing and guaranteeing Indigenous cultural access, or entering into co-stewardship agreements, land trusts have the potential to be powerful allies to tribes. With a shared focus on land protection, tribes and land trusts can find common ground to benefit all our relations.”
Ruiz said NLC has provided Herring Pond Tribe with advice on how to begin setting up their trust, alongside identifying potential acquisitions. Down the road, NLC hopes to collaborate on “Native-to-Native” work in restoring more of the Herring Pond Tribe’s original reservation territory through their trust.
The tribe has already begun resource management work. Tribal members Jamie Hoctor and Karina Silva led an investigation of Burying Hill, a site on former tribal land where they discovered tribal graves.
“Whether it’s turned into a park or whether we can get that land back, the tribe will be happy as long as it’s preserved and not developed,” said Silva.
The tribe has also partnered with organizations to study and manage Indigenous plants and wildlife using traditional knowledge, Ferretti said. While the land trust remains the immediate priority, the tribe plans to pursue federal recognition in the future.
Federal recognition represents a critical step for tribes, designating them as sovereign nations and providing access to federal resources. The process through the Department of the Interior’s Office of Federal Acknowledgement is notoriously complex — since 1978, only 18 tribes have won federal recognition through this administrative pathway.
The Biden administration moved to lift a decades-old ban that prevents tribes from reapplying after failed federal recognition attempts. However, the Trump administration delayed the rule change in Feb. 2025 for review. More than 30 tribes nationwide, including the Herring Pond Wampanoag, could be affected by the final decision.
While the tribe watches these developments, Ferretti remains focused on the tribe’s immediate concerns. “That's integral - seeking that recognition is the next step for us,” Ferretti said. “But right now, the land trust is the focus.”
Brian Edwards provided reporting.
