The Fund’s focus on acquisition and effective land-use in New Jersey highlights the importance of protecting land - from coastal marshes to cultural areas - as a way of preserving the region's unique way of life. The Fund and its partners have protected more than 4,000 acres in New Jersey since 1985.

Recent Projects

Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

With funding from multiple federal, state, and private sources, the Fund protected a 90-acre tract of land to prevent incompatible development within the boundaries of the refuge.

Cape May National Wildlife Refuge

The Cape May National Wildlife Refuge is renowned for its spectacular winged migrations. Each year millions of shorebirds, songbirds, and raptors, including the piping plover, least tern, red knot, and Cape May warbler, converge on Cape May National Wildlife Refuge to rest and feed along its shores and wetlands. In fact, the fall bird migration is one of the area’s signature tourism events.

Thanks to financial support from the Allerton Foundation, the Fund worked on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire 24 critical acres of coastal marshlands as an addition to the refuge’s Two Mile Beach.

In December 2008, as part of a 437-acre deal facilitated by the Fund, Cape May National Wildlife Refuge acquired 371 acres of grasslands, salt marshes and forestlands along Bidwell Creek, a tributary of Delaware Bay. Bordered almost entirely by the refuge’s existing protected lands and faced with the threat of development, this property ranked as a high conservation priority. Cape May County acquired an additional 66 contiguous acres for passive recreation and wildlife habitat.

In addition to the 360 species of birds that inhabit the 11,000-acre Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, more than 30 different mammals and 45 varieties of reptiles and amphibians call this area home, making it a popular wildlife viewing destination. Many of these species need large areas of unfragmented habitat to thrive, and protecting these 437 acres creates a large contiguous block of land where wildlife can roam.

A variety of sources contributed funding for the purchase of the property, including Cape May County, the state of New Jersey – through the Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program and the Wetlands Mitigation Council – and a donation from the landowner, Braddock Enterprises. At the federal level, Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and Rep. Frank LoBiondo championed this project in Congress and secured funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Additional federal funding came from a North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant, the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund and the USFWS.

View the news release »

Past Projects

Duke Farms

Since 1998,we have worked with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Duke Farms Foundation on all aspects of an adaptive reuse plan for Duke Farms, a 2,700-acre estate in central New Jersey. The project will culminate in a Master Use Plan and supporting implementation strategy that capitalizes on the property’s natural, cultural, and historic resources and ensures open-space protection and ecological restoration.