Advocacy

New Jersey is the first state in the nation predicted to reach full build-out (by mid-Century), meaning all available land not preserved will be developed. Although our state is a long-time leader in land preservation efforts, many needs remain. For example, hundreds of thousands of acres of priority lands not yet preserved (particularly in the Highlands and Pinelands regions) play critical roles in providing clean water. NJ Audubon worked to pass every Green Acres bond since 1961 and as coordinator of the NJ Keep It Green Coalition, also led efforts to ensure sustainable funding for State preservation programs such as Green Acres, Blue Acres, Farmland Preservation, and Historic Preservation. NJA also seeks to ensure the stewardship of preserved lands and parks and that they remain open and accessible to all where appropriate. This includes, in part, backing legislation to deem our state parks as essential services to prevent their closure in case of government shutdowns, opposing increases in user fees and park development projects outside the scope of small-scale concessions.

NJ Audubon also advocates for open space preservation funding at the federal level by supporting the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is the nation’s leading land conservation program which provides funding derived from offshore leasing and development revenues. Congress authorized the program to receive $900 million of those funds annually but actual appropriations have consistently fallen well short. The LWCF also leverages matching investments that support the acquisition and development of outdoor recreation areas and facilities, benefiting hundreds of state and local parks across New Jersey. LWCF also provides funds for other important conservation programs (e.g. Highlands Conservation Act, Forest Legacy Program).

Healthy forests provide numerous benefits including diverse habitat for species, water protection, soil conservation, carbon sequestration, wood products, and much more. New Jersey’s forests are faced with many human-induced impacts. Invasive plants and insects, disease, fragmentation, excessive deer populations along with fire exclusion have many forests struggling to support the natural processes that once occurred. Most of New Jersey’s forests are in the mid-successional stage of development, when forests tend to have the least biological diversity and growth begins to slow. This reduces natural resilience which is needed to combat the stressors mentioned above.

To combat this, NJ Audubon leads an effort to secure passage of the New Jersey Healthy Forests Act which will properly guide the active management our state forested lands. In so doing, we are encouraging the kind of stewardship that we implement on our own managed lands to ensure healthy forested ecosystems and increased habitat for wildlife, including threatened and endangered species. Many states throughout the country practice responsible forestry to improve the overall health of forested ecosystems and in recent years, all our adjoining states have realized the positive results from a proactive philosophy of managing their public lands. New Jersey is a nationwide leader in preserving open space and passage of the Healthy Forests Act will enable proper stewardship of critical forest habitat.

Fire is a normal and necessary process in our forests where fire-adapted plants and wildlife depend on it to maintain their habitat. For example, the open spaces created after a burn are critical for certain species such as the Pine Barrens Tree Frog and Red Headed Woodpeckers. Fire has long been suppressed in New Jersey, yet restrictions on controlled fire creates a more dangerous situation by allowing for the buildup of excessive fuel loads and increasing the chances of devastating wildfires.

Prescribed burn is a management technique applied by trained experts to fire dependent ecosystems to provide both an important form of natural disturbance and reduce fuel loads. NJ Audubon is a longtime user of prescribed burns on our properties and worked actively with partners and members of the Legislature to pass the Prescribed Burn Act. Now law, the Act provides for a certification process for prescribed burn managers, a notification process for landowners, and a liability shield for prescribed burn managers and owners who are properly utilizing this valuable management tool. Ecological thinning by mechanical means will complement prescribed fire implementation and will help prevent fires in undesirable locations and reduce the frequency and intensity of unintended wildfires.

The current white-tailed deer population in New Jersey far exceeds the ecological carrying capacity of the land to sustain biodiversity and allow for forest regeneration. The increasing suburbanization of New Jersey provides a highly fragmented environment with abundant edge habitat where deer thrive. Plentiful food sources, along with open spaces where hunting access is limited or restricted, high deer birth rates, longer life spans, and the extirpation of native predators have allowed suburban areas to experience exponential deer population growth.

Elevated deer densities have devastating impacts on forest diversity because deer prefer to forage on woody vegetation and herbaceous plants in the understory. Native wildflowers, herbs and the buds and young shoots of woody shrubs and saplings are among their favorites. Once populations exceed a certain threshold, this can cause a severe problem for forest regeneration and structure, as well as bird species that rely on the understory for nesting and foraging habitat. NJ Audubon advocates for State policies to manage deer herds based on ecological integrity, including biodiversity conservation. NJ Audubon also works educate communities and landowners dealing with deer overabundance and those interested in developing local deer management programs.