Natural Lands - The Magazine of Natural Lands Fall/Winter 2018, Issue 153 | Page 22

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“Urban green space is essential for the health and
well-being of city residents, which makes the permanent
protection of Friends Hospital’s campus all the more
significant,” said Oliver Bass, president of Natural Lands.
Joe Pyle, president of the Thomas Scattergood
Behavioral Health Foundation, added, “The Foundation
is thrilled to place the property under conservation
easement with Natural Lands. We are committed to
being good stewards of the land and honoring our Quak-
er roots by using the property to promote healing and
recovery for all.”
small in size. big in bounty.
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Old Tennis Court Farm Community Garden
0.66 acres
City of Philadelphia
Key Partners: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Commonwealth Financing Authority with funds from
the Marcellus Legacy Fund; Friends of Cloverly Park;
Neighborhood Gardens Trust; William Penn Foundation;
gardeners and supporters of Old Tennis Court Farm
Natural Lands assisted gardners in Philadelphia with
saving their beloved community garden. Located in
northwestern Philadelphia adjacent to Cloverly Park, this
property was the former tennis courts of Germantown
Friends School and is known by the community as “Old
Tennis Court Farm.” In 2009, the property was converted
to a community garden, and grew over the years to 47
plots that produced fresh food for the gardners and local
food security charities. A few years later, Germantown
Friends School made the difficult decision to put the
property up for sale, which resulted in the closure of
the garden, putting the future of this robust community
garden in jeopardy.
Natural Lands, in partnership with Neighborhood Gar-
dens Trust and the dedicated gardeners, secured grant
funding and donations to purchase the property from
Germantown Friends School. After Natural Lands took
ownership this past summer, the community garden
flourished once again, with oversight and assistance
from Neighborhood Gardens Trust. The gardeners are
dedicated to growing organic food, demonstrating sus-
tainable practices, and fostering personal relationships
between members of this diverse neighborhood. Natural
Lands has now transferred the property to the Neighbor-
hood Gardens Trust.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, NJ
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Menantico Preserve
600 acres
City of Vineland
Key Partners: Cumberland County; Ducks Unlimited;
New Jersey Conservation Foundation; New Jersey
Green Acres Program; Open Space Institute; The Nature
Conservancy; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; William
Penn Foundation
Natural Lands helped secure funding in this public-pri-
vate partnership to purchase 600 acres along Menantico
Creek in the City of Vineland. New Jersey Conservation
Foundation will own and manage the new Menantico
Preserve, which includes 2.2 miles of Menantico Creek
and its tributaries: habitat for a number of endangered
and threatened species. Menantico Creek is a tributary
of Maurice River and both are federally designated “Wild
and Scenic” rivers. New Jersey Conservation Foundation
plans to work on the preserve over the next several years
to create trails, parking, and river access so that visitors
can enjoy and appreciate its natural beauty.
SALEM COUNTY, NJ
more than just a rodeo.
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Cowtown
375 acres
Pilesgrove Township
Key Partners: New Jersey Conservation Foundation; Open
Space Institute; Pilesgrove Township; U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s Agricultural Conservation Easement
Program administered by the Natural Resources
Conservation Service; William Penn Foundation
Community gardeners Margaret
Lea and Mark Kearney in front of
Old Tennis Court Farm Community
Garden (far left). During the last
growing season community plots
at the garden provided fresh food
for the Whosoever Gospel Mission,
with donations of 30 pounds of
winter squashes, sweet potatoes,
beans, cabbages, carrots, tomatoes,
green beans, and celery.
Natural Lands provided strategic technical assistance
and helped secure funding for New Jersey Conservation
Foundation’s purchase of a conservation easement on
375 acres of Cowtown’s grasslands. The 1,700-acre Cow-
town property, which has been in the Harris family since
1929, is a south Jersey institution that includes the coun-
try’s oldest weekly professional rodeo and the Cowtown
Farmers Market. Cowtown’s vast grasslands are some
of the best habitat in New Jersey, supporting numerous
endangered and threatened bird species. The Cowtown
easement is the first time federal funds have been used
in New Jersey for a “grassland of special environmental
significance.”
An American Kestrel (a NJ “threatened” falcon spe-
cies) nest box program—funded in part by the William
Penn Foundation’s Delaware River Watershed Initiative
as a way to build and foster relationships
with farmers in the watershed—helped
Natural Lands staff to get to know the Har-
ris family and opened the door for discus-
sions about a conservation easement. The
nest boxes have been quite successful at
Cowtown, growing from one nesting pair of
kestrels to seven successful nest pairs in
each of the last two seasons. Thirty kestrel
young were banded from the Cowtown
nest boxes in each of the last two years,
with hands-on banding help from the
Harris family. W
American
Kestrel