PROGRAM FOR STATE OWNERSHIP of PARK and FOREST LAND IN NEW JERSEY BOARD OF CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT STATE OF NEW JERSEY }UI.Y 1, 1936 PROGRAM STATE OWNERSHIP of PARK and FOREST LAND IN NEW JERSEY BOARD OF CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT STATE OF NEW JERSEY ] lJI,Y 1, 1936 BOARD OF CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT STAT:~£ HOUSE ANNEX, TRENTON, N. J. HENRY L. MoELLER, President Weehawken ARTHUR J. CoLLINS, JR. Moorestown WILLIAM C. CoPE . Glen Ridge W. STEWART Hor,LINGSHEAD Riverton JoHN L. KusER Bordentown HERBERT N. SMALLEY Bridgeton H. ARTHUR SMITH Lawrenceville OwEN WINSTON .Mendham (P. 0. Gladstone) HENRY B. KOMMEL, Director and Chief of the Division of Geology and Topography. CHARLES orester and Chief of the Division of Forests Parks. CONTENTS PAGE Statement of Underlying Principles 5 Statement of General Situation 6 PART! NORTH JERSEY 10 Summary State Reservations . 13 Summary other Public Reservations . 15 Recommended Program . 15 Summary Recommended Program . 19 PART II SOUTH JERSEY . 20 Summary State Reservations . 22 Other Public Reservations • . 22 Recommended Program . 23 Summary Recommended Program . 25 PART III SEASHORE . 26 Recommended Program . • . 27 Summary Recommended Program . 28 General Summary Proposed Program . 29 MAP . 30 3 A Program FOR State Ownership of Park and Forest Land in New Jersey Prepared by C. P. WILBER, State Forester STATEMENT OF UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES Two general underlying principles are recognized in considering the matter of State owned park and forest lands. ( 1) The function of the State is to provide "open space" or recrea­ tion areas of a character or in locations which will serve the population of at least a considerable section of the State. Such areas will ordinarily only be of large wild land properties or of unusually high cost properties which, because of their primary value to the whole population are desirable but which are outside the scope or beyond the means of the local government unit. Exceptions to this general principle will occur when historic, scenic or similar factors of State­ wide interest justify State ownership and maintenance of smaller areas or of areas which from a purely recreation standpoint should not be made State projects. It is not the function of the State to provide small playground areas, the primary value of which and the major use of which will be for local populations immediately adjacent to them, nor to maintain breathing spaces in the centers of dense population, these being functions of the county ,and municipal governments. (2) There are two types of ownership involved in the program proposed; ( 1) State Parks ( 2) State Forests. Both types can and should serve the needs of the public for open spaces. Ih use no sharp line can be drawn between them. In cost there is this distinction: much higher prices are justifiable in purchases for park purposes and much greater expenditure may be made for their development. Also parks may or may not be fully self-supporting and, while many 5 such areas can and should be handled under scientific forest manage­ ment, such administration is a secondary consideration. Areas taken as State Forests, however, are expected to and will, under proper management, become self-supporting timber areas as time goes on. There is, therefore, a price limit for purchase cost and a maximum per acre limit for maintenance. However, in the New Jersey situa­ tion, with the State's dense population and limited area of available open spaces, there will certainly be park value and park use of any large forest holdings owned by the State. This will often justify a considerably higher price for such woodland areas than would be permissible for strictly forestry use both for purchase and mainte­ nance. The two programs are so closely related that they must run parallel and under close coordination to avoid duplication. STATEMENT OF GENERAL SITUATION (a)-From the social starndpoint New Jersey, with a population of nearly 600 people per square mile, but with 80% of this population living in towns and cities presents a situation which calls for careful provision for open spaces. The unrestricted use of even the privately owned wilderness areas for out-of-doors recreation is rapidly passing. The time will soon be here when organized public reservations will offer the only opportunity for outdoor recreation to our citizens within their State. The following figures show our relation to the more progressive States in this respect, giving the acreage of organized public reser- vations per thousand of inhabitants: · Minnesota .............. ~ ... 1,127 Michigan ................... 517 New Hampshire ............. 125 Wisconsin .................. 493 North Carolina ............. 68 New York .................. 220 Connecticut ................. 66 Pennsylvania ............... 214 Massachusetts .............. 63 Vermont ................... 177 Maryland ................... 53 NEW JERSEY......................... 37 New Jersey, a. leader among the States in so many ways, is sadly laggard in this respect. Present conditions of population and land use, and especially the future prospects in these respects, make this situation one which the State should take up energetically and promptly. In the recreation field, particular note should be made of the part which a general wild land ownership program may play in fish and game matters. Every large wild land holding offers three contacts with this problem. (1) Such areas will provide public hunting 6 grounds. Under proper administration such use of the areas will in no way injure their usefulness for other recreation purposes or as timber areas, but cau. make provision for the sportsmen, on an ade­ quate scale in answer to the sportsmen's urgent dema.nds, as the present State Forests do to their limited capacity. (2) Such areas will provide public fishing streams and ponds, just as the present State Forests do altogether inadequately. (3) Such areas will permit of fish and game sanctuaries for the protection of wild life and for stocking the adjacent portions of the same areas. The program proposed will in large measure, if not entirely, provide for the first and third items above named. It will not include public ownership of much of the larger streams in North Jersey and it is probable that other provision for public use of these waters will be desirable from the sportsmen's standpoint. Also any necessary provision for public access to the salt water bird shooting will require special arrangement outside this park and forest program. (b)-From the economic standpoint there are almost two million acres of wild land in New Jersey. This is nearly one-half the total area of the State. This acreage is increasing, not sl!rinking. About one and a half million acres of it is unproductive, idle, waste land. If given only fire protection, parts of it will recuperate of itself, but this will take from 150 to 300 years. If also given proper care and help it can all be made useful, profitable and beautiful within 75 years and much of it within 25 to 30 years. Other parts of the country have their reclamation problems and projects in irrigation, in flood control, in drainage for all which great sums of public money are made available. New Jersey's waste land problem is in none of these categories. It is nevertheless propor­ tionately as acute and as important. The answer to our problem is the production and maintenance of forest on our wilderness. It is now as useless to this State as flood plain, swamp and desert are to the South, the Lake States and the West. It will repay this State for rehabilitation as those other lands have and are paying for their return to usefulness. If these areas had no prospective economic value, their value to the public under public ownership as public recreation areas both now and in the future would fully justify the acquisition and management of much of them by the public for this purpose alone. The rebuilding of our wilderness will not be done by private initia­ tive or at private expense to any appreciable amount. Its degradation has been permitted through public carelessness and indifference. Its reclamation is a public responsibility and duty. We are an old State in which land ownership long since all has passed from public to private hands. This reclamation therefore, involves public purchase 7 of the land, public restoration of its forested condition, public pro­ tection of its possibilities. No other agency or agencies will, no other agencies should be expected to, perhaps no other agency could undertake the matter. The public can and should and sometime will be compelled to do so. The State can do so at a money profit and with assurance of other rich benefits from many angles, both social and economic. When restored to full productivity and assured adequate protection, wise public policy in the future may dictate return of a large portion of the reclaimed land to private ownership with adequate recompense to the State for the public investment involved. Or the public in­ terest may be best served by its continued maintenance and adminis­ tration under public ownership, both as profitable ·crop-bearing land for timber supply and to serve the wild life, recreation, watershed protection and other public needs. We will suffer immeasurably in the future and continue to lose much now, unless the State faces its idle land situation fairly and makes provision now for its remedy by reclamation. The Board of Conservation and Development has laid down and has been working for a considerable period toward a comprehensive program of State Forest ownership involving a minimum ownership of 200,000 acres of wild li!Jld to be taken in sections where the primary value of the land is now and for years to come will be its maintenance as :woodland. In addition there are locations in which the more costly park land should be taken by the State.