Archive for February 2025

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation To stand on the corner of Doremus Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is to breathe in some of the most polluted air in the country. Hundreds of vehicles drive to and from the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal and Newark Liberty International Airport every day. Nearby, the…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Planting a city tree that will flourish is no easy feat, but the City of Trenton and nonprofit partners are prepared to rise to the occasion, planting 1,000 trees over the course of the next year. A newly launched partnership, “Trees for Trenton,” is bringing that…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Of the many butterflies, none has captured our collective attention and awe over the years quite like the monarch. Will we finally protect them? Monarch populations in North America have rapidly declined, and in December, federal biologists proposed that the butterfly receive protection as a threatened…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Recognizing the sophisticated nature of plants might just change the way we see the world. Zoë Schlanger, in her recent New York Times best-seller, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, wrestles with questions about an emerging and…