Looking back on a banner year

2024 was a truly remarkable year for The Land Conservancy of New Jersey, with major accomplishments that were years in the making. We preserved 10 properties totaling 224 acres and entered into agreements to purchase two of our most important long-term targets—a property that will provide public access to Split Rock Mountain and the last large missing piece to complete a greenway that connects Swartswood State Park and Paulinskill Wildlife Management Area. State agencies recognized The Land Conservancy’s outstanding conservation work with the largest state grants ever awarded to a nonprofit to protect both open space and farmland.

We began a partnership with the South Jersey Land and Water Trust to preserve land in the Pinelands, and we raised $765,000 for our Highlands Watershed Preservation Fund to offset the loss of foundation funding necessary to match our Green Acres grants.

We completed 19 open space and farmland preservation plans to help guide the land preservation efforts of local governments throughout the state.

$60,000 in scholarships was disbursed to six future environmental leaders, a huge leap forward for a program that was able to give just $15,000 in 2020. We hired Van Trat as our new Education Manager to run the Outdoor Ambassador Program, which invites children from urban neighborhoods to our preserves for environmental education opportunities. We received a generous $200,000 gift that tripled the size of our Richard M. Sargent Internship Fund to sustain our Interns and Fellows program.

And if all of that was not enough, we capped off the year by winning the 2024 National Land Trust Excellence Award—the most prestigious honor in our field. We invite you to delve into how we're doing by reading our annual report.