Archive for March 2025

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Birds are amazing! From the vibrant colors and calls of songbirds to the majestic flight of eagles, these winged creatures have long been a source of wonder and inspiration. Birds evolved from dinosaurs about 150 million years ago, and have survived the great extinction events of…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Gathered round Martha’s Pond in New Jersey’s iconic Pine Barrens, students in Claude Epstein’s environmental science class were instructed to put down their notebooks and simply observe. Under a big blue sky, amid verdant grasses and patches of lily pads intertwined through soggy ground and rambling…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation The daughter of a vegetable farmer in upstate New York, Joanna Burger grew up observing killdeer nests and helping her father around the farm. When she got to high school, she found herself bored, which often led to trouble. “I was always being brought back by…

By Alison Mitchell, Executive Director, New Jersey Conservation Foundation Sean Kane-Holland is on a mission to make parks and trails more accessible for everyone. As Access Nature Disability Advocate at Pineland Preservation Alliance (PPA), he has evaluated dozens of trails throughout the state for barriers to people with disabilities. Sean understands many of these obstacles.…