Pine Barrens (New Jersey)

The New Jersey Pine Barrens, also known as the Pinelands or simply the Pines, is the largest remaining example of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecosystem, stretching across more than seven counties of New Jersey. Two other large, contiguous examples of this ecosystem remain in the northeastern United States: the Long Island Central Pine Barrens and the Massachusetts Coastal Pine Barrens. The name pine barrens refers to the area's sandy, acidic, nutrient-poor soil. Although European settlers could not cultivate their familiar crops there, the unique ecology of the Pine Barrens supports a diverse spectrum of plant life, including orchids and carnivorous plants. The area is also notable for its populations of rare pygmy pitch pines and other plant species that depend on the frequent fires of the Pine Barrens to reproduce. The sand that composes much of the area's soil is referred to by the locals as sugar sand.

The Pine Barrens remains mostly rural and undisturbed despite its proximity to the sprawling metropolitan cities of Philadelphia and New York City, in the center of the very densely populated Boston-Washington Corridor on the Eastern Seaboard. The heavily traveled Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway traverse sections of the eastern and southern Pine Barrens, respectively. The Pine Barrens territory helps recharge the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, containing some of the purest water in the United States. As a result of all these factors, in 1978, Congress passed legislation to designate of the Pine Barrens as the Pinelands National Reserve (the nation's first National Reserve) to preserve its ecology. A decade later, it was designated by the United Nations as an International Biosphere Reserve. Development in the Pinelands National Reserve is strictly controlled by an independent state/federal agency, the New Jersey Pinelands Commission.

The Pinelands Reserve contains the Wharton, Brendan T. Byrne (formerly Lebanon), Penn, and Bass River state forests. The reserve also includes two National Wild and Scenic Rivers: the Maurice and the Great Egg Harbor.

John McPhee's 1967 book ''The Pine Barrens'' focuses on the history and ecology of the region.

History

Pre-historic

Between 170–200 million years ago, the Atlantic coastal plain began to form.

The Barrens formed in the southernmost and newest land area in New Jersey 1.8 to 65 million years ago, during the Tertiary era.

Over millions of years, the rising and falling of the coastline deposited minerals underground, culminating with the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago, when plants and trees began growing in what is now New Jersey.

Forest fires have been a common occurrence before habitation by humans. Fire has played a major ecological role in the Pinelands, and the ecotypes "suggest that short fire intervals may have been typical in the Pine Plains for many centuries, or millennia."

Pre-Columbian

Around 10,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Lenape people first inhabited the Pine Barrens.

The fire regime before European settlement is poorly understood. Scholars know that the Lenape tribes burned the woods in the spring and fall to reduce underbrush, and improve plant yields and hunting conditions. The Pine Barrens, with its sandy soil, did not attract a permanent agriculture population (whose main interest would have been to establish permanent boundaries and clear the forests for fields). The area's sparse population encouraged a long-lasting attitude that forest fires should be set for local benefit—even on the lands of others. For instance, it was profitable for charcoal burners to set fires deliberately, in order to make the trees useless for any purpose other than charcoal making, then purchase the trees for a discount.

European settlement

During the 17th century, the area that is now New Jersey was explored and settled by the Swedish and Dutch, who developed whaling and fishing settlements mainly along the Delaware River. The English claimed the area as of 1606 under their London Company, and the Dutch abandoned their claim to the English in 1664. The first shipbuilding operations began in the Pine Barrens in 1688, utilizing the cedar, oak, and pitch trees, as well as local tar and turpentine. The first sawmills and gristmills opened around 1700, leading to the first European settlements in the Pi