Laptop Battery The New Jersey Conservation Foundation announced yesterday that it had entered into formal agreement to buy 9,400 acres in the heart of the Pine Barrens, representing what it said would be the largest private land preservation deal ever undertaken by a nonprofit organization in the state.
Another gift came in the form of land. In the heart of the Pine Barrens in Burlington County, a family corporation has decided to sell its family land of 9400 acres for half of its market value. It is one of the largest privately held tracts of land in New Jersey, and the familys decision to sell it for half price, made it possible to permanently preserve the land for future generations.
Thinkpad The 14-square-mile property, which is the second-largest tract of privately owned land in New Jersey, consists primarily of wetlands and upland forests, with 1,500 acres of reservoirs, and close to 800 acres of cranberry bogs and 300 acres of blueberry fields. The tract, which includes parts of Bass River, Tabernacle and Woodland Townships, also connects four state forests and one wildlife management area.
Montgomery said it's doubtful the Pine Barrens would have been preserved to the extent they have if McPhee hadn't written his book. "The Pine Barrens, " Montgomery said, influenced former Gov. Brendan Byrne to enact legislation designed to protect most of the Pine Barrens from development. "It is very nearly a miracle that so much of the Pine Barrens survives as it does today, " Montgomery said. McPhee, whose current project is a piece about travels on a tugboat on the Illinois River to be published in The New Yorker magazine, said he is thrilled and grateful that "The Pine Barrens" was chosen for One Book New Jersey.
Microsoft The conservation group said it would name the property for Franklin E. Parker, the first chairman of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, from 1979 to 1988, and the first person to make a sizable donation toward buying the land. The land where the bogs are now will be named the DeMarco Cranberry Meadows Natural Area, after the DeMarco family, which has owned the land for more than 60 years.
Not quite three years ago, the state paid just under $46, 000 an acre to preserve the Giamarese land in East Brunswick.
Laptop Computers "I'm very proud of my family's participation in this effort," said J. Garfield DeMarco, president of A. J. DeMarco Enterprises, which, until it stopped harvesting last year, was one of the country's largest cranberry growers. "We've kept this area beautiful and now we're going to help preserve it."
The book, in its 157 pages, life anecdotes. The Pine Barrens, which encompass 1.1 million acres in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland and Gloucester counties, Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston. At least 90 percent of the Pine Barrens that were mostly pristine wilderness and cranberry bogs at the time McPhee wrote his book remains free of development today, more than 36 years later, said Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.
Laptop Computer The land was originally offered to the conservation group last November for $12 million, a price that was estimated to be about half of its assessed value. A March 1 deadline to come up with the initial payment $5 million was extended by Mr. DeMarco to Sept. 1. The balance will be paid off over the next five years. The foundation's executive director, Michele Byers, said it was important to move quickly since about $3 million of the $5 million is in the form of annual pledges, in part contingent upon closing the deal this year.
The Township Council has authorized an engineering company to design a comprehensive network of trails through land now preserved as open space. In a unanimous vote, members of the council agreed to pay Schoor DePalma of Brick, Monmouth County, no more than $11, 500 to create a trail map that would span 10 preserved properties totaling several hundred acres. acre Trotter's Crossing tract on Walton Avenue, Mount Laurel Road, acre piece of land.
Desktop Computer "The fact that we were able to collect this amount of money in this short period in these difficult times speaks to the importance of the project," she said. "People recognize how important it is to be able to permanently preserve contiguous property to protect the water supply and wildlife management."
Notebooks The foundation will begin inspecting and surveying the land, and, barring the discovery of any unexpected environmental hazards, plans to close on the sale in late November.
Lenovo Under the deal, the DeMarco family maintains the right to harvest cranberries this year and the next two seasons, however Mr. DeMarco, who remains a shareholder in Ocean Spray Cranberries, said he is not exercising that option this year.
Hard Drive "The cranberry industry has inalterably changed," said Mr. DeMarco, who has battled with growers over the cooperative's future. "Cranberry farming is just not profitable, and I don't see it changing any time soon."
Travelstar New York Times - 8/14/2003
Topic: Pinelands
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