Pine Barrens

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: 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 17 trillion gallon 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 1.1 million acres of the Pine Barrens as the Pinelands 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.

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