Contested Lands: Conflict and Compromise in New Jersey's Pine Barrens (Conflicts in Urban and Regional Development)

The nation's first and only "national reserve," the Pinelands of New Jersey is located in the middle of the densely populated urban corridor between New York City and Philadelphia. Possessing vast quantities of pure groundwater, distinct flora and fauna, and a fascinating history of human occupancy and resource exploitation, the Pine Barrens is managed by a fifteen-member commission appointed at the federal, state, and local level. In his discussion of the implementation of the Pinelands Commission's regional plan, Robert Mason explores the changing politics of place and the associated conflicts of interest that have emerged.
The Pinelands program is widely viewed as a land-use and regional planning experiment of national significance. The Commission has prospered as a bureaucratic entity by attempting to satisfy a range of key interests. While sustained by legislative and gubernatorial support and an absence of well-organized public opposition, the Commission still has had to accommodate community and rural entrepreneurial interests. In order to convey some sense of the social, political, and economic texture of the Pines, Mason examines three Pinelands communities--Woodland Township, Hamilton Township, and Manchester Township. Since outside interests concerned with ecological protection have set the terms for regional management and have succeeded in removing much local land-use control to the state and federal level, resentment from within the region has had to be addressed.
The objectives of the program include ecological, historical, and cultural preservation; protection of agriculture; and direction of future residential, commercial, and industrial development to those areas best suited ecologically and culturally. In terms of regional planning, the Pinelands experience offers a unique model for the management of valued places across the nation, for greenline park planning, and for the international system of biosphere reserves (a United Nations designation). The Pinelands also provides valuable lessons about the human problems that must be confronted when trying to reconcile an ecologically driven planning scheme with human settlement patterns, political subdivisions, and economic systems.
Arguing that the Pinelands should be viewed as a series of subregions rather than one homogeneous region, Mason outlines three issues that pervade regional planning in the Pines and elsewhere: What is preservation and does it imply only minimal human presence? What constitutes a region? How does land look when it is viewed through the lenses of physiography, culture, politics, and economics? The author concludes, "We need first to ask what it is we are setting about to save or enhance before we even begin trying to do so. This question never has been squarely faced in the Pinelands.