“The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.”

-Luna Leopold

Preserved forests, wetlands  and other natural lands provide tremendous ecological benefits, like filtering rainwater and soaking up floodwater.  But we need to also take care of that land through good stewardship.  Ecosystems are under constant stress due to invasive, exotic plants and pests, overabundant deer, and increasingly frequent severe weather such as storms and droughts.  Raritan Headwaters works to be good stewards of our 10 nature preserves and also provide guidance to other public and private landowners on best managment practices and restoration of healthy forests and other natural lands.

Our stewardship program works to emphasize and enhance the greatest ecological features of our properties and other public and private natural lands.  On RHA’s preserves, stewardship efforts focus on planting native trees and shrubs to restore forests, removing invasive plants such as Autumn olive, Japanese barberry and Asiatic bittersweet, creating wetlands, improving wildlife habitat value and maintaining trails for the public to access.

We are also working on conservation of American Kestrel and Eastern Bluebirds through our nest box programs both on our preserves and on private land in the region and we are working with our partners to plant native trees and shrubs to restore forested riparian buffers along streams throughout the Upper Raritan Region.  To learn more about RHA’s bird conservation and riparian restoration projects contact Kristi MacDonald, Ph.D., Director of Science, at kmacdonald@raritanheadwaters.org.

Stewardship Volunteers are always needed.  Learn more here.