Saving Land Campaigns

By Benjamin Reuter

The section in A Citizen’s Guide to Grassroots Campaigns on saving the swamps and other landmarks was pretty interesting. I always knew about the certain organizations of groups that got together to tackle these kinds of problems but I never knew about the little details that went into gathering the people or even the first steps to take towards such a goal. The people that were quoted in this section all seemed to have a common bond towards the specific section of nature that they were trying to save.

The bird watchers that loved seeing the migration of birds through the wetlands 20 miles west of Newark banded together with other community people in the surrounding area in order to stop the encroachment of larger and more expansive airport systems being built atop the beautiful marshland of the Great Swamp.

In Northern Morris County, a group of environmentalists banded together in the 1980’s to stop the deforestation and rural expansion that was happening along Interstate 287 and Highway 23. The local communities banded together by word of mouth communication as well as getting into contact with the local service authorities in order to stop this growth of building and destruction of nature in the Farny Highlands area.

In the section dealing with the Farny Highlands I was curious to read that in order to save this particular area of the land the community needed to put a ‘name’ on the area. Why do you need to name a particular area in order to save it? Is it a type of claiming that happens to be an unwritten rule? I do not see why a group of people that are looking to save a particular section of forests need to put a stamp on it. What’s wrong with rallying to save a piece of land without putting a name to it?