Princeton NJ Non-Profit Press Releases

D&R Greenway Preserves 2nd Salem County Farm

This photograph was taken by D&R Greenway’s Preservation Biologist, Diana Raichel

D&R Greenway Land Trust announces the preservation of a second SalemCounty farm.  This property is located in the Delaware Bayshores region, along Mannington Meadows in Mannington Township. Owned by Andrew and Christine Carpenter, it was preserved using funds from the State Farmland Preservation Program, the Open Space Institute (see below) and SalemCounty’s Farmland Preservation Program.  The property totals seventy acres, including an 18^th Century farmhouse.  Prime birding territory, across its fields and Mannington Creek is an active bald eagle nest. 

Salem County is a legendary farming region, one of the key reasons for the term, “The Garden State”. D&R Greenway is particularly concerned with protecting wildlife habitat values of the remarkable Mannington Meadow, its marshes and waterways.  In 2008, also in SalemCounty, D&R Greenway facilitated one of the largest land preservation transactions in New Jersey history, Seabrook Farms.

Protecting the agricultural lands in this region serves the purpose of preserving the bucolic landscape and its significant natural resources.  Recognized as an important Bird and Birding Area [IBA] by NJ Audubon, Mannington Meadow is home to breeding and nesting species, as well as providing respite and nourishment for many migrating species twice each year.  This property will now be a part of the community’s agricultural heritage in perpetuity.

Since 2008, D&R Greenway Land Trust has been negotiating to protect 2300 acres of agricultural landscape and natural resources along the Mannington Meadow.  These ManningtonTownship  successes have been largely facilitated by funding through the William Penn Foundation.    With its preservation partners, committed to protecting agricultural integrity, D&R Greenway Land Trust is currently negotiating on parcels totaling over 1000 acres in Mannington and PittsgroveTownships. 

NJ Keep It Green Coalition notes that “Andrew’s and Christine’s farm is the second of three Carpenter family farms to be preserved along Mannington Meadow.  D&R Greenway Land Trust is currently working to close the final Carpenter property, brother John’s farm, just across Kings Highway.”

With its 1.5-acre non-severable exception, the Andrew and Christine Carpenter property was preserved by the Open Space Institute.  “Open Space Conservancy, Inc., an affiliate of the Open Space Institute, Inc., is managing the Bayshore-Highlands Fund, a $6 million fund established with an initial grant from the William Penn Foundation in order to protect land in the Delaware Bayshore in New Jersey and the Highlands in Pennsylvania.”  [required by O.S.I.]

These targeted acquisitions are characterized by farmland and emergent marshes associated with the SalemRiver, a tributary of the Delaware, in SalemCounty.  The Mannington Meadows project area is mainly brackish intertidal marsh along the SalemRiver, and freshwater tidal marshes on its tributaries with bordering farmland.