(Note: This webpage and associated links are neither intended for, nor available to, the general public. Please refrain from sharing or posting this URL on any public website.)
Animals need to be able to move through the landscape to find food, mates, and other resources. Without that ability to move, long-term persistence of populations is in jeopardy.
New Jersey is facing increasing habitat loss and fragmentation from steady urbanization, a dense network of roads, and a changing climate that are compromising the connectivity of habitat and wildlife populations. Fortunately, New Jersey is also a recognized leader in the preservation of open space for recreation, agriculture, and conservation.
For New Jersey's tremendous land preservation efforts to have the greatest value for wildlife, they must effectively reconnect our present, fragmented landscape. Land preservation and habitat restoration, along with increasing road permeability for wildlife, must be targeted at the most crucial intact wildlife habitats and result in reconnecting key habitat corridors that provide linkages among our existing protected areas.
A Statewide Habitat Connectivity Plan will serve as a blueprint for strategic habitat conservation and will also highlight additional actions necessary to restore and maintain critical habitat linkages. The end products of this effort will consist of:
1) a statewide map depicting areas crucial for habitat connectivity, and
2) a menu of implementation actions, relating to each identified corridor that will provide guidance on how to secure, or restore each corridor.
These products are intended to allow land-use, conservation, and transportation planning to operate in a more collaborative way, that reduces conflicts, saves money, and ultimately improves the prospects for the long-term sustainability of New Jersey's terrestrial wildlife.
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, one of the many important project partners in this initiative, is graciously hosting the Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey Working Group content on their website at the following URL:
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation webpage and associated links are neither intended for, nor available to, the general public and are not accessible via Conserve Wildlife Foundation's homepage.
The development of a public website where we can share information on wildlife habitat connectivity planning will be launched in the next several months.
Some
files on this site require adobe acrobat pdf reader to view.