The Trump administration rescinded a $25 million grant awarded to Mass Audubon — the largest federal grant the nonprofit had received in its 123-year history — to protect 10,000 acres of land along the Connecticut River and restore 100 acres of damaged habitat.

“This grant is a model for good governance,” said David O’Neill, Mass Audubon’s president and CEO. “It’s going to keep working foresters on their land, it will leverage $22.5 million in private funds, and it will address functioning water supply for millions of people. It’s a relatively small grant that punches way above its weight in terms of the impact on issues that society cares about.”

Mass Audubon planned to spend the grant money purchasing conservation restrictions to preserve the forests, wetlands and agricultural land for those working purposes. The grant would have also funded restorative land management practices like dam removals or regeneration of flooded forests to restore habitats along the river.

“This slows our ability to meet our goals at a time where we need to be speeding up to use the natural world to address pressing issues regarding the environment and climate,” O’Neill said.

The conservation organization had reached out to local land trusts, municipalities and private landowners that might be interested in collaborating on this large-scale conservation project but had not spent any of the funds yet, O’Neill said. Kestrel Land Trust, Hilltown Land Trust, and Mount Grace Land Trust were three of the organizations that had begun working with Mass Audubon on the projects that the grant would fund.

“So long as the Trump administration insists on abdicating its responsibility to protect our shared natural heritage, local communities must find other ways to be resilient. Land trusts are here to help,” Kestrel Land Trust Executive Director Kristin DeBoer said in a statement. “In the face of this federal funding decline, Kestrel will double down on our efforts to raise private funding from community members and foundations, partner with municipalities to leverage Community Preservation Act Funding, and work to bring state grants to the Valley. We are committed to ensuring that conservation projects continue to serve community needs throughout the region.”

Among the cities and towns that would have reaped the benefits of projects funded under the grant are Amherst, Easthampton, Belchertown, Agawam, Chicopee, Deerfield, Greenfield, Hatfield, Hadley, Holyoke, Northampton, South Hadley, Springfield, Sunderland and West Springfield.

Similarly, the Trump administration also recently terminated $20.8 million awarded to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs from the same U.S. Department of Agriculture program. This grant served the same purpose as Mass Audubon’s grant, but applied to farmland, forest and wetlands across the state to meet Massachusetts’s goal of protecting 30% of the state’s land by 2030.

“When we stop protecting natural lands, we lose clean air, flood protection and the ability to slow climate change,” said Rebecca Tipper, secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. “These places absorb carbon, shield our homes from extreme weather and keep nature in balance. Without them, we all feel the impact.”

Appealing the decision

The grant rescind letter Mass Audubon received explained that the Trump administration chose not to spend any money from the Inflation Reduction Act passed during the Biden administration. Some $1.4 billion of IRA money went to supplement the USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), according to reporting from POLITICO.

However, O’Neill said the initial grant letter he received in October 2024 approving the funds said the money was coming from a legislative package called the Farm Bill, not the IRA.

“That’s why we’re very confused. You’re taking money out of the IRA, but our money was from traditional farm bill money,” O’Neill said. “That’s why we’re appealing the decision.”

The Farm Bill, O’Neill said, is a bipartisan legislation package passed every five years that funds a wide variety of agricultural and food programs, from rural development and crop insurance to SNAP and conservation. The RCPP was also slated to receive $250 million in mandatory farm bill money along with $ 1.4 billion in IRA contributions, according to Pro POLITICO. Most of the Mass Audubon grant came from the former, not the latter.

Regardless if the Trump administration approves the organization’s appeal, Mass Audubon plans to continue the projects planned with the grant money, just at a slower pace. O’Neill affirms that all the legwork strategizing conservation goals, planning conservation restrictions and restoration treatments and building relationships with public and private landowners will continue.

“This is so important to us,” O’Neill said. “We’re not going to give up either if it gets rescinded. There will be another round of RCPP money, and we’re going to go back at it and do our best because the work does deserve grants of this scale and support from the federal government.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.