Dorothy Reserve
New Jersey Conservation Foundation
NEW JERSEY CONSERVATION FOUNDATION LAND STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM
Perhaps the million-acre decade's greatest challenge is: how do you care for land once it's preserved? New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJCF) is creating a series of coordinated pilot land management initiatives to help answer this question. NJCF's land management entails being a responsible neighbor while making available opportunities for public enjoyment and providing critical ecosystem protection and enhancement though habitat restoration. In addition, NJCF has created numerous environmental education opportunities by making self-guided nature trails. We will also continue to foster and create innovative land management partnerships and share our experiences with other nonprofits, private landowners, and state government.
ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION AND HABITAT IMPROVEMENT
Most organizations involved in land management in New Jersey focus on species and habitats that are threatened with eminent extinction or hunted game species. NJCF proposes to focus land management on habitats and species that are still reasonably common, but have the potential to become threatened and endangered as development and land fragmentation increases. These species and habitats are common in landscapes with minimum development, but become less common as development increases. There are many examples of species that require this type of habitat including native wildflowers, butterflies, and certain birds.
One of the reasons why biological diversity in New Jersey is declining is
because ecological processes that need large contiguous areas of land are now
not able to take place. For example, plants and animals that rely on
catastrophic wildfires in the Pine Barrens are declining because of successful
fire suppression. Development is also fragmenting the landscape and introducing
invasive non-native species that choke out native species. Species that need
large areas to survive, such as ground nesting forest birds, are especially
vulnerable to fragmentation caused by development.
Dorothy Reserve Cedar Swamp
All of NJCF's models will try to solve the problem of long-term loss of
biodiversity in a highly developed and fragmented landscape. NJCF's ecological
restoration activities will include the enhancement of diversity of native
habitats and promotion or inhibition of natural successional patterns to create
habitat types needed by these declining species. Through Pine Barren Savannah
restoration, NJCF's management will show how land managers in the Pine Barrens
can maintain 
viable populations of redheaded woodpeckers, kestrels, and
bluebirds, all of which decline in a fragmented landscape. NJCF has begun Pine
Barrens Savannah restoration in the Pine Barrens on the Dorothy Reserve and Four
Mile Springs Reserve. In central and northern New Jersey deer are having a
drastic influence on young forests by browsing seedlings. NJCF is attempting to
change a field into a young forest by erecting an electrified deer enclosure
fence. If we are successful, we will have created the only substantial forest of
young trees in the area. Land mangers in the are eagerly awaiting the results of
NJCF's experiment.
Savannah restoration at Dorothy Reserve
PRESCRIBED BURNING
To forward our ethic of being a responsible neighbor, NJCF will use fire as a tool to help reduce the public safety hazard catastrophic wildfires starting on our reserves in the Pine Barrens. Forest fires are a common natural event in the Pine Barrens and can be very dangerous. NJCF is working closely with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service to implement forest fire hazard reduction plans. Prescribed burning according to these plans will ensure that our reserves are not areas where an arsonist could easily start a dangerous uncontrolled fire.
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION NJCF will strive to provide the general public with opportunities to learn from the natural environment. The Everet Trail and the Dorothy Reserve Nature Trail are where NJCF provides the public with environmental educational opportunities. The Everet Trail is mentioned in many nature field guides to New Jersey and is a "hotspot" for south Jersey birding. The trail is unique because it permits access to an otherwise inaccessible dense hardwood swamp. A interpretive trail is also being created on both the Four Mile Springs Reserve, with financial assistance from a national trails act grant, and the Wickecheoke Creek greenway.
INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT PARTNERSHIPS
Local hunting groups, volunteers, and land management professionals are
integral to managing NJCF's properties. NJCF will continue to recruit local
volunteers and groups to act as community stewards and enable them to facilitate
workdays and trash cleanups and post boundaries. Michael Hogan, a renowned Pine
Barrens photographer, is one volunteer NJCF has been working with. He has
created a nature trail and runs cleanup days at the Dorothy Reserve. At the Four
Mile Springs Reserve the Burrs Mill Hunt Club patrols and controls vandalism and
helps with ecological restoration and monitoring efforts.
The partnership NJCF has formed with the Forked River Mountain Coalition (FRMC) and the State of New Jersey, Division of Fish and Wildlife for managing the Forked River Mountain Wildlife Management Area, a 4000-acre wilderness in the Pine Barrens owned by NJCF, is an example of innovative land management partnerships. Allmanagement decisions are made on a collaborative basis between FRMC, Fish and Wildlife, and NJCF. FRMC is a local land trust and land management group that conducts scientific studies, helps monitor the Wildlife Management Area, and partners in acquiring additional land adjacent to the reserve. The State of New Jersey conservation officers patrol the wilderness, enforce regulations and state laws and add technical expertise in developing management plans. Local hunting club working at
the Dorothy Reserve
NJCF has also been the catalyst of a groundbreaking management plan for Lebanon State Forest in the Fine Barrens. This adaptive inter-agency cooperative plan will be the first of its kind in New Jersey. NJCF staff is facilitating the experts within the state Forestry Service and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop a comprehensive plan that will increase critical habitat for endangered, threatened, and declining species of plants and animals. NJCF envisions that the management model being developed will eventually be used on state forests in the Pine Barrens and throughout the rest of the state.
Through these initiatives. New Jersey Conservation Foundation is continuing its leadership role in land management in New Jersey and answering the question of how to care for one million acres once it is preserved.
Click on http://www.njconservation.org/ for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation's website.