Here we go again. We need to push back on any road closure. https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandfore...E2bJxJQRqZzDAIN8vErJtzBiAjIwrqDd4r0PJ_pH16zF4
The MAP is back
- Thread starter Pinesbucks
- Start date
- Status
Noon to 7:00 pm at Batsto Visitor Center on January 24.
A unique format. Stagger in at any time during those hours and talk to actual State employees who are affiliated with the map. No scheduled presentations.
A unique format. Stagger in at any time during those hours and talk to actual State employees who are affiliated with the map. No scheduled presentations.
It would be great if they had the first map they wanted to change back in 2016(?) right next to the one they are proposing now, so one could see the difference.
Mark the 2016 roads that were designated open in yellow on that old map. On the newly proposed map, if any of the 2016 open ones stay yellow, keep them yellow. Also on the newly proposed map, if there are additional roads to be designated open, mark them in green. If there are any roads from the 2016 that were open, but are now proposed to be closed, leave the yellow on but cross them out in red "X"s every 1,000 feet.
Or some such. My point being that confusion will reign if you don't know where you came from and where you are going with the new plan.
Mark the 2016 roads that were designated open in yellow on that old map. On the newly proposed map, if any of the 2016 open ones stay yellow, keep them yellow. Also on the newly proposed map, if there are additional roads to be designated open, mark them in green. If there are any roads from the 2016 that were open, but are now proposed to be closed, leave the yellow on but cross them out in red "X"s every 1,000 feet.
Or some such. My point being that confusion will reign if you don't know where you came from and where you are going with the new plan.
They should not mark any of them closed. I am fully against this because it will not work.
By all means, be sure to go, especially if your message is that *your* convenience and *your* personal recreational preferences are more important to you than conservation.
Get off your high horse feller. Are you going? Will you be behind a desk explaining?
See how the NJCF and PPA destroyed Enduro events. It's despicable. Absolutely disgusting and heavy handed.
New Jersey Conservation Foundation | Current Issues
Here's what you need to know related to New Jersey conversation issues, including climate change, public lands, bills, forest protection, and more.
www.njconservation.org
As a writer and a self proclaimed Piney here is a piece I wrote on the subject back in May of 2021. Thought I'd share here. The new Map and the same old attitude is now what I see as the reason why the film I produced was banned from being screened at Batsto. You can search on YouTube and watch the film for free titled The Reluctant Piney.
*************************************
No matter if you like it or not change is in the air. With each passing breath, you breathe in things that are altered and out of your control. It's inevitable. There is a foreshadowing event occurring in the Pine Barrens that many believe will alter how we travel down many of the once-important highways of the Pines into the forgotten towns of yesterday. Good or bad or indifferent? This author likes some change then swears up and down about other changes for better or for worse, who knows. The coming changes the NJDEP is bringing to the Pine Barrens are likened to the event that changed the landscape of Texas and the American West- the introduction of barbed wire.
Many never leave the featured highways in this photo series. People from the East Coast crisscross the Pine Barrens using Routes; 72 and 539. They are unaware of the destination each side road that they pass has to offer them. Mystery, adventure, and places nowhere special yet worth getting lost in. It’s hard to describe to people who only know the Pine Barrens from traveling down those asphalt highways from point A to point B. There are remnants of ghost towns, squatter homes, unknown burial sites, abandoned hunting cabins, and many other strange and curious finds. The dirt itself if it could tell us all those that walked on by would astound. The native Americans on their way to-and-fro the Jersey shore, city people on stagecoaches heading to a halfway house for the night before making their way to a summer retreat, a quick-footed foxhound on the scent of prey and its owner chasing after, a Piney at sunset carrying the last full bag of pinecones on his back to finish loading the truck, nefarious humans doing illicit things in the pitch-black pinewoods like bootlegging and the list goes on and on.
Barbed wire in the West changed the landscape significantly. Access was denied to a once-open range. The ‘open range’ called many a young person to venture out West and start a life. The sense of adventure and freedom one had. That same call of the wild is what many seek in the Pine Barrens. You might not know it but it's at the root of why we love the Pine Barrens so much. The unfettered freedom of walking or driving down a road and seeing nobody for miles and miles. Just you and the Pines. One can easily slip into the boots of a cowboy out on the range with the feeling that the only law comes from within and that being a good neighbor is respected and expected. But like the few cowboys who went rogue taking the easy way out by stealing cattle and robbing stagecoaches we have a few in the Pine Barrens that when given that sense of unrestricted freedom take advantage. When that happens signs and gates go up. Then the signs and gates are ignored like the proverbial cowboy cutting barbed wire from the post on the range. Eventually, the law and society caught up to the lawless. The loss of the wild and unfettered access to the Pines is what is at stake today in the Pine Barrens. Maybe it's about time society caught up with the outlaw pineys. Or maybe those who travel the backwoods roads know more secrets about the Pines and love to see the folks on the tar roads traveling through point A to point B leaving them to the open range.
*************************************
No matter if you like it or not change is in the air. With each passing breath, you breathe in things that are altered and out of your control. It's inevitable. There is a foreshadowing event occurring in the Pine Barrens that many believe will alter how we travel down many of the once-important highways of the Pines into the forgotten towns of yesterday. Good or bad or indifferent? This author likes some change then swears up and down about other changes for better or for worse, who knows. The coming changes the NJDEP is bringing to the Pine Barrens are likened to the event that changed the landscape of Texas and the American West- the introduction of barbed wire.
Many never leave the featured highways in this photo series. People from the East Coast crisscross the Pine Barrens using Routes; 72 and 539. They are unaware of the destination each side road that they pass has to offer them. Mystery, adventure, and places nowhere special yet worth getting lost in. It’s hard to describe to people who only know the Pine Barrens from traveling down those asphalt highways from point A to point B. There are remnants of ghost towns, squatter homes, unknown burial sites, abandoned hunting cabins, and many other strange and curious finds. The dirt itself if it could tell us all those that walked on by would astound. The native Americans on their way to-and-fro the Jersey shore, city people on stagecoaches heading to a halfway house for the night before making their way to a summer retreat, a quick-footed foxhound on the scent of prey and its owner chasing after, a Piney at sunset carrying the last full bag of pinecones on his back to finish loading the truck, nefarious humans doing illicit things in the pitch-black pinewoods like bootlegging and the list goes on and on.
Barbed wire in the West changed the landscape significantly. Access was denied to a once-open range. The ‘open range’ called many a young person to venture out West and start a life. The sense of adventure and freedom one had. That same call of the wild is what many seek in the Pine Barrens. You might not know it but it's at the root of why we love the Pine Barrens so much. The unfettered freedom of walking or driving down a road and seeing nobody for miles and miles. Just you and the Pines. One can easily slip into the boots of a cowboy out on the range with the feeling that the only law comes from within and that being a good neighbor is respected and expected. But like the few cowboys who went rogue taking the easy way out by stealing cattle and robbing stagecoaches we have a few in the Pine Barrens that when given that sense of unrestricted freedom take advantage. When that happens signs and gates go up. Then the signs and gates are ignored like the proverbial cowboy cutting barbed wire from the post on the range. Eventually, the law and society caught up to the lawless. The loss of the wild and unfettered access to the Pines is what is at stake today in the Pine Barrens. Maybe it's about time society caught up with the outlaw pineys. Or maybe those who travel the backwoods roads know more secrets about the Pines and love to see the folks on the tar roads traveling through point A to point B leaving them to the open range.
The word conservation is used improperly in the context of your statement. I believe you would be much happier if this Map is strong on preservation.
From a National Park Service lesson plan entitled, Conservation vs Preservation and the National Park Service:
"Put simply conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use."
Is it coincidence that the PPA stands for Pinelands Preservation Alliance ? I think not.
The nuance is right there in the conditional clause: "especially if your message is that *your* convenience and *your* personal recreational preferences are more important to you than conservation." I especially want people for whom that is true to go and express themselves. The real lack of nuance is expressed by those who don't want to acknowledge the ecological impacts of motorized recreation and just keep saying, "No road closures." A motorized access plan of any kind within a globally-important ecosystem is necessarily a compromise between protection of the ecosystem and convenience to visitors. The ideal state for the ecosystem would be zero motorized traffic. The ideal state for the visitors would be unrestrained access. This has all been articulated over and over again and repeated on the DEP site: https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/wharton/. "Data to create the Visitor Vehicle Use Map was gathered through an extensive stakeholdering process, during which more than 1,600 people submitted surveys, noting areas of interest and routes that were important to them. Additionally, DEP data on endangered, threatened and of conservation concern plant and animal species; wetlands; historic and cultural resources; and Natural Areas and Natural Heritage Priority Sites were taken into consideration during the Visitor Vehicle Use Map’s development."
I like doing word analysis, and I think you have a legitimate point in the distinction between conservation and preservation. The meanings of the two words, though, don't seem to me to be so cut and dried. One example would be the case of coastal plain intermittent ponds in the NJ pine barrens. I think they should be "preserved," in the sense that I don't want them to be lost or destroyed, but I certainly wouldn't want them to be "preserved" in the sense of being entirely removed from human use. The only issue is whether the use by humans is degrading them. And I think that holds for the pine barrens in general. The meaning of most any word varies with the context and the intent of the user. Pinelands Preservation Alliance wants the pine barrens preserved in the sense that its mission is to try to keep it from being lost or destroyed or damaged. The name certainly wasn't chosen to imply that it thinks the pine barrens should be removed entirely from human use. To understand that, you only have to look at the fact that PPA actively encourages outings in the pine barrens, including those that involve motorized travel.
Hi Russ. Thanks for the clarification. Indeed, this has been rehashed many times. Pardon me if you've detailed this before on this forum, but what exactly is the plan that you'd like to see implemented? Most here would agree that a balance needs to be struck between recreation and preservation.
- Status