! 0 5 g n i n Tur Why The Wetlands Institute Was Vital Then, And Why It’s Vital Now
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By Dr. Lenore Tedesco, Executive Director of The Wetlands Institute
hroughout the year, The Wetlands Institute is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding. Many of you know us well. Others have driven by for years but really don’t know who we are or what we do. And even more are unfamiliar with our history. As we celebrate 50 years since the founding of The Wetlands Institute, it is an opportune time to explore our roots and tell a most remarkable story that has had a profound impact on our community and coastal communities statewide and beyond. I will share some of the highlights throughout the summer here, as well as in presentations and exhibits at the Institute, and in presentations throughout the community. The planning and foundational documents of the Institute tell an incredible story of vision, perseverance, diplomacy, and a deep understanding of the value of coastal marshes. They speak of the importance of preservation, but also of the critical need for research and engaging the community in an understanding of the value of these ecosystems.
The Institute was founded through the efforts of Herbert Mills, then the executive director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Mills and his colleagues noted the dramatic decline in commercial and recreational fisheries, the increase in water pollution, and the loss of important services that wetlands provide to communities resulting from the large-scale loss of wetlands to development and filling. He introduced the New Jersey Wetlands Acquisition Project to the WWF executive committee in the fall of 1967 after years of research identifying the importance of marshes, and especially these marshes. Mills wrote frequently of the values of coastal marshes for the protection of communities in coastal storms, and in a 1968 article in the Cape May County Herald, he documented the role of our wetlands for averting flooding damage to the community from a recent storm. Mills was a visionary who was way ahead of his time because he was talking about coastal resiliency, a term now in widespread use following the devastation
Joe Jacobs on an osprey nest at Cedar Island in early 1960’s.
of Superstorm Sandy but largely not a recognized benefit before Sandy. Mills and the WWF made a stand for the protection of coastal wetlands and chose South Jersey as the focal point because of Mills’ love for the area and the imminent development threat these marshes faced. By 1967, Mills had amassed significant evidence that proved these marshes were among the most biologically diverse on the entire East Coast. An early letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports his assessment and confirms that these marshes are “of national park quality” and in desperate need of protection. Joseph Jacobs, an Avalon summer resident and licensed bird bander, had been banding osprey here for decades by the late-1960s. Jacobs’ work had established that the osprey nesting on Cedar Island, in the marshes behind Avalon, comprised the last significant nesting population of osprey in the entire state. Among the archived documents at The Wetlands Institute is a heavily worn coastal chart titled simply “Mills Master
Plan” in red pencil. On this chart are notations of various parcels, their acreage and their owners, along with color coding for prioritization of acquisition. In December 1967, Mills met with Commissioner Robert Roe of the New Jersey Department of Conservation and Economic Development, the precursor to the Department of Environmental Protection. He presented his plan for the WWF to purchase thousands of acres of marshland with the intent of preserving them in perpetuity, and holding them until the state was in a position to take them. Roe clearly agreed to the plan because at the time of the Institute’s founding two years later, WWF had acquired more than 5,000 acres of coastal wetlands in Cape May County. The initial acquisitions covered more than 10 square miles and extended throughout the back bays from Sea Isle to Wildwood and from the barrier islands to the mainland. The land-acquisition costs exceeded $4.9 million, when converted to 2019 values. In addition to land acquisition for preservation, Mills and his colleagues
Herbert Mills and Mark Pokrast studying osprey in Scotch Bonnet Creek 1968. continued on page 60