Funding package includes grants for conservation projects, deer fencing

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FIRST MAJOR CONSERVATION APPROPRIATION UNDER PANDEMIC CONDITIONS

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TRENTON – The board of the Garden State Preservation Trust today approved
$52.8 million for an array of projects and local grants statewide to preserve farmland
and improve farm soil conservation.

The board also approved a $50,000 grant to the Geospatial Lab at Rowan
University for the development and maintenance of the New Jersey Conservation
Blueprint Web site. (https://www.njmap2.com/blueprint)

This is the fifth funding package approved for New Jersey’s Farmland
Preservation Program since the voters approved a constitutional amendment to
dedicate money from the Corporation Business Tax for conservation purposes.

This year, the CBT dedication will provide $113 million to the broad range of
conservation programs: park and natural land acquisitions, conservation, farmland
preservation, recreational development, capital projects at State parks and wildlife
refuges, and historic preservation grants. This will be supplemented by funds from
previous years that had been unused or withheld in a reserve to bring to total available
to $219 million for Fiscal Year 2021.

The largest component of today’s approvals was $23.5 million in Farmland
Preservation grants to counties and towns to pay for easement acquisitions in
accordance with pre-approved Planning Incentive areas. There were also grants
totaling $3.8 million to four nonprofit land trusts: D&R Greenway Land Trust, The
Land Conservancy of New Jersey, the Monmouth Conservation Foundation and the
New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Today’s approval includes stewardship funding to provide matching grants to
encourage farmland owners to improve soil conservation and irrigation on farms that
have already been preserved.

The resolutions approved today by the six board members of the Trust will be
introduced as appropriations bills in the Legislature. If approved by both houses, the bills
will go to the Governor for his signature.

New Jersey taxpayers since 2000 have committed $3.2 billion to state and local
preservation and conservation efforts. More than 450,000 acres of parks, forests, refuges
and private farms have been preserved under GSPT-funded programs since 1999.