Preserve’s Access is a Work in Progress

March 26, 2007

By RICHARD PEARSALL
Courier-Post Staff

Woodland site offers special glimpse of Pinelands

It's been three years since the New Jersey Conservation Foundation acquired J. Garfield DeMarco's vast holdings in the Pinelands.

The 14-square-mile Franklin Parker Preserve in Woodland is by law and the NJCF's own design open to the public.

But there are as yet no parking lots to facilitate entry into the sprawling tract, and the only signs, posted intermittently at the preserve's edge, say "access by permission only."

A conflicted welcome that points to the inherent tension between public access and preservation of precious resources?

More like a work in progress, said Chris Jage, the foundation's South Jersey director, who described public access as "a core part of our mission."

Jage, one of those affable experts whose enthusiasm is contagious, conceded that the white, diamond-shaped signs out at the Preserve contain an "unfortunate choice of words."

"Everyone has permission," he said.

But he insisted that the Parker Preserve, named for the first chairman of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, both wants and needs visitors.

"If you don't grant people access to lands like these," he said, "they won't care about them."

He listed a number of initiatives under way to make the preserve more user friendly.

The Foundation has ordered new signs, applied to the New Jersey Pinelands Commission for permission to build two parking lots, hired a consultant to develop a master plan and inquired about using the nearly restored White Horse Inn in Chatsworth as a visitors center from which guided tours could be launched.

"We're an understaffed nonprofit," Jage said, "and these things take time."
Carleton Montgomery, the executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, believes the NJCF is on the right track.

"They're going through a process of thinking it through," Montgomery said. "It may take a while, but they felt it was more important to do it right than do it in a hurry."

The ideal situation for a preserve like this one is to "have lots of preserved land that is accessible to the public, some lands that are quite inaccessible and to carefully monitor the land that is open," Montgomery said.

In public lands, pretty much everything is accessible and there is little policing.
Among the biggest problems are off-road vehicles and poachers who take everything from rare orchids to snakes and turtles.

"I've been told by a botanist that there's a big contrast between the state forests and the Parker Preserve in the health of the botanical community," Montgomery said.

While the entire preserve is open to the public, Jage said, in practice "we're going to attract people to certain areas and not attract people to other areas."
The latter he described as "areas of highly sensitive natural resources."
"It's what we call striking a balance," said Jose Fernandez, the director of the state's Division of Parks and Forestry, which runs three huge state forests linked via the Parker Preserve.

Jage said trails will pretty much stick to existing roads and paths in the preserve, the one exception being a new section of the Batona Trail that runs through the state forests.

"Ideally you want to bring people into a place like the Parker Preserve with a wonderful guide, someone who shares his experience, knowledge and passion," Montgomery said. "That way people will enjoy it, come to love it, get on the side of preserving it."

Jage hopes to assemble a cadre of such guides to work out of the White Horse Inn.

On a recent tour he gave as part of an all-day conference sponsored by the Pinelands Commission, Jage noted the Pinelands do not offer the spectacular vistas associated with the National Parks of the West.

"I like to say the Pinelands are best appreciated on your hands and knees," Jage said.

Kneeling by the side of a sand road he pointed out a tiny red flower, commonly called a "British soldier," which is actually not a flower at all, but red coloring at the tip of a lichen.

"For me, the beauty in the Pinelands is in its subtlety," he said.

Reach Richard Pearsall at (856) 486-2465 or rpearsal@courierpostonline.com

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