Enveloped by these forests, and on the margins of vast open fields, marshes and bogs, are the tangible stories of human adaptation to this unique environment. Just under an hour’s drive from Philadelphia, the traveler enters onto the Byway and begins to make their way through some of the most extensive forests remaining in the northeastern United States. If the traveler is willing, it is a trip through time – through memory – and a glimpse at one of the most unusual natural and cultural environments left in our nation. The Byway is not only a trip on a series of roads through the Pine Barrens. The natural beauty that characterizes the setting of the Pine Barrens Byway is also intertwined with narrative, and stories of human experience. A journey along the Byway beckons to the traveler to actively engage with the landscape as the original, indigenous inhabitants of the region did for thousands of years, and the European settlers that followed them generations later. it is sometimes mysterious, and at all times profound in its beauty. The Pine Barrens is a place to be unpacked, to explore, to ‘experience’. But the deeper charm and allure of the Pine Barrens and our Byway is even subtler than these things. The Pine Barrens Byway traverses a landscape of sublime natural beauty: the rare pygmy pines, lakes and streams fed by a 3,000-square-mile aquifer system, and biomes that include a vast array of plant and animal life, some unique to the Pinelands and nationally protected. Forty-three threatened or endangered animal species and 92 threatened or endangered plant species are found in the Reserve. The reserve is approximately 35% wetlands and lies above the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer, which contains an estimated 17 trillion gallons of water. Designated as our country’s first national reserve in 1978, the Pinelands National Reserve occupies 22% of New Jersey's land area. The Reserve is a 1.1-million-acre mosaic of forests, farms, rivers, streams and towns, and it is the largest body of open space on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond, Virginia and Boston, Massachusetts. The Byway passes through five counties and 16 municipalities, providing a pathway to explore the Pinelands and its natural and cultural treasures. Designated as a New Jersey Scenic Byway in 2005, this 130-mile route is located in the Pinelands National Reserve and extends from Batsto and Tuckerton in the north to Dennisville and Port Elizabeth in the south.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |