Joan Bullard

When it comes to speaking up for open space, the South Coast has had no more passionate voice than that of Joan Bullard. For nearly 20 years, Joan has worked tirelessly to ensure that the places that make this corner of Massachusetts special are protected – for everyone, forever.

It’s hard to find a conservation project along the South Coast that Joan hasn’t been involved in. She served on the board of the Dartmouth Natural Resources Trust (DNRT) between 1991 and 1996, again from 1998 to 1999, and yet again from 2003 to 2008. And, from 1993 to 1996, she served as the organization’s president.

Joan began the campaign to save Dartmouth’s 140-acre Smith Farm in 1991, which was DNRT’s first fundraising campaign. She was critical to the joint Trustees–DNRT effort to save Slocum’s River Reserve and surrounding land. And, she was a lead fundraiser for the Hixville Conservation Project in 2003, which raised $1.2 million to save land just south of The Trustees’ Copicut Woods. Joan also co-chaired the Saving Buzzards Bay Lands Campaign, an effort that raised an incredible $30 million and protected more than 3,000 acres across the South Coast.

Most recently, Joan played a key role in raising the funds to save 120-acre Cornell Farm in Dartmouth, another joint project of DNRT and The Trustees, which just opened as The Trustees’ newest reservation in September.

Altogether, Joan has helped raise more than $40 million for land conservation – campaigns that preserved more than 3,700 acres.

Her efforts are about more than dollars and acres, though. Joan has helped protect some of the most iconic landscapes on the South Coast: scenic views across fields and estuaries, working farms that support our local economy and provide us with fresh food, woodland trails that provide quiet getaways, and stunning landscapes that support a rich diversity of wildlife.

When Joan reflects on that first campaign to save Smith Farm all those years ago, she recalls knowing a lot of people who were upset that it might get developed and who cared about saving the land. “We had to do something,” she says. And so, she goes on, "we did."