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Duke Farms briefs Franklin open-space committee on statewide habitat-connectivity tool
Summary
Duke Farms staff demonstrated the Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey web tool to Franklin’s Open Space Advisory Committee, showing mapped corridors, culvert passability layers and mitigation project photos and encouraging Franklin to reference habitat connectivity in its open-space plan to access a 50% Green Acres match.
Lindsay Brewbaker, community-led conservation coordinator at Duke Farms, on June 16 presented the Connecting Habitat Across New Jersey (CHANGe) web tool to the Franklin Township Open Space Advisory Committee, describing map layers that identify habitat cores, likely movement corridors and culvert passability and explaining how the tool can support local land-protection decisions.
Brewbaker said the CHANGe viewer allows users to overlay preserved lands (federal, state and municipal), view culvert inventories scored for wildlife passability and inspect mitigation projects with before-and-after photos. “If you go to their website…there’s a guidance document, a web viewer…and you can plug in your home address or the area you’re interested in to see exactly how animals use habitat,” Brewbaker said. She also noted the project runs wildlife cameras to document usage by species such as bobcats.
Committee members asked whether the purple corridor shown on the map through southern Franklin is already preserved. Brewbaker replied that some portions are preserved and that the CHANGe analysis identified routes that are the most feasible to connect based on existing protected areas. She offered to follow up with town staff to clarify which specific parcels in Franklin appear in the corridor overlay.
Brewbaker also described outreach resources: a detailed guidance document (about 90 pages), a wildlife-tracker reporting tool, an email listserve and printable postcards to post in kiosks. She said that including habitat connectivity language or a reference to CHANGe in an update to the township’s open-space or master plan can open eligibility for a state Green Acres funding match (she noted a 50% match for qualifying open-space preservation projects).
The committee and staff discussed next steps. Brewbaker will send RSVP information for an August 5 convening at Duke Farms for municipal, county and NGO partners to discuss practical uses of the tool; she also offered to connect township staff to Green Acres contacts and provide postcards for kiosk outreach. Committee members noted the township recently introduced an ordinance to buy a property within the mapped corridor and said they will review CHANGe’s parcel overlays to prioritize local protection work.
The presentation was informational; no formal action was taken beyond staff follow-up to receive CHANGe materials and the August meeting invitation.
