Tag: Pine Barrens
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Pine Barrens natural landscape will rebound from Wharton wildfire
By Alison Mitchell Fueled by high winds and dry conditions, New Jersey’s largest wildfire in 15 years swept through Wharton State Forest in the Pine Barrens two weeks ago, burning more than 13,500 acres. Thankfully, no lives or homes were lost, as the blaze occurred in a remote part of New Jersey’s largest tract of…
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The State We’re In: Pine Barrens natural landscape will rebound from Wharton wildfire
By Alison Mitchell, Co-Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Fueled by high winds and dry conditions, New Jersey’s largest wildfire in 15 years swept through Wharton State Forest in the Pine Barrens last week, burning more than 13,500 acres. Thankfully, no lives or homes were lost, as the blaze occurred in a remote part of…
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Swaths of Atlantic white cedar forest totaling 10,000 acres to be restored
By Michele S. Byers Step into a mature stand of Atlantic white cedar trees on a hot day and you will instantly feel cooler. These towering native evergreens grow so dense that they shade out sunlight and create forest floor habitat for ferns, sphagnum moss, liverworts, insect-eating plants, rare orchids and swamp pinks. In turn,…
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‘Pine Mud’ film exposes off-road vehicle damage to Pine Barrens
By Michele Byers For those who love nature and wildlife, the New Jersey Pine Barrens are a million acres of incomparable beauty and wilderness in the middle of the heavily-developed East Coast corridor. It’s a region rich in rare plants and animals, some found nowhere else on Earth, and has been designated an international Biosphere…
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Restoring the ‘kidneys of the Pine Barrens’
By Michele S. Byers To early European settlers, the native evergreen trees known as Atlantic white cedars must have seemed like a gift. The towering cedars – some more than 1,000 years old – grew in dense swamps up and down the Atlantic coast, including many spots in New Jersey. Cedar wood was lightweight, straight-grained…
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Pine Barrens ‘mudders’ focus of new documentary
By Michele S. Byers It was a warm, rainy May night in 2016 and filmmaker Jared Flesher was searching for threatened and rare Pine Barrens tree frogs. With help from a guide, he found himself next to a pond deep in the wilderness of Wharton State Forest. “We could hear whippoorwills singing, then we heard…
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Explore the Pine Barrens through paddles, hikes and tours
By Michele S. Byers New Jersey may be the nation’s most densely populated state, but how many of its citizens know the Pine Barrens? The Pine Barrens wilderness includes more than a million acres of pine forests, rivers and streams … with few roads, cars or developments. It’s a place with unique plants and animals,…
