Tag: New Jersey Conservation Foundation
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New Jersey Conservation Foundation executive director offers a grateful farewell
By Michele S. Byers In my years at New Jersey Conservation, I have made the Garden State my home and have grown to love it like a native. I have been to nearly every corner, from High Point to the tip of Cape May, have seen a lot of changes and have learned much about…
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Green Acres program has been ‘in it for the people’ for 60 years
By Michele S. Byers Depending on your age you may think of the 1960s silly television comedy “Green Acres” when you see Green Acres signs around this state we’re in and don’t know about one of New Jersey’s best kept secrets. Fortunately for New Jersey’s people and wildlife, the state Green Acres program – which…
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Winter is the perfect time for owl spotting in New Jersey
By Michele S. Byers Early every winter, anticipation builds among lovers of rare birds in New Jersey. It’s time once again for the arrival of magnificent snowy owls from the north. These striking white owls with bright yellow eyes spend their breeding season north of the Arctic circle in Canada, hunting lemmings and other small…
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First stomp, now scrape? Lanternfly continues to bug Garden State
By Michele S. Byers You may have noticed New Jerseyans doing a strange “dance” before the weather turned cold. It’s the Spotted Lanternfly Stomp and it was performed in a variety of outdoor settings, including sidewalks, public parks, private yards, farms and orchards. The purpose of the Stomp was to help eradicate the spotted lanternfly,…
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Seeking solutions to warehouse sprawl in the Garden State
By Michele S. Byers For decades, suburban sprawl consumed farms, meadows, wetlands and forests. New housing, corporate parks, shopping malls and countless businesses took over New Jersey’s landscapes, often with little regard for water supplies, roads, waste water, schools and other needed infrastructure. Today there is a new type of sprawl threatening this state we’re…
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Farm helps heal New Jersey Native American community
By Michele S. Byers On paper, the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Sussex County looks like a start-up business, but at its heart, it’s a charity with the goal of feeding, healing and sustaining members of the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. This Native American tribe historically lived in what is now…
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Protection of open space has tangible economic benefits
By Michele S. Byers New Jerseyans love preserved land. Over the past 60 years, voters overwhelmingly passed every statewide ballot question on funding to protect open space, farmland and historic sites. This state we’re in may be the nation’s most densely populated, but we have worked hard to permanently preserve about a third of our…
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Jim Wyse will be remembered as a conservation trailblazer
By Michele S. Byers Many people don’t know about the highly complex and technical steps required to preserve land. It may seem that suddenly a sign goes up on a farm or a forest indicating the land is now preserved. But how did it happen? Well, one of the most knowledgeable and respected land preservation…
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Misunderstanding ravens ‘nevermore’
By Michele S. Byers Ravens are often depicted in literature and folklore as omens of bad luck, evil and death. The most famous may be the one in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, who torments a bereaved lover to madness by repeatedly croaking “nevermore.” A group of ravens is called an “unkindness,” or sometimes a “treachery” or…
