consulting services for local governments
Conservation Resources, dedicated to providing technical and financial assistance to the conservation community, is also the premier New Jersey non-profit environmental consulting organization focusing on the areas of Open Space and Farmland Planning, Acquisition, Preservation, Stewardship, Trail Planning and Implementation and Land Management. Conservation Resources can assist local governments in virtually any aspect of planning for, acquiring, and managing their green infrastructure.
Current government clients include: Roxbury Township, Mendham Township, Randolph Township, Andover Borough, Chester Township, Chester Borough and Frankford Township.
Open Space Plans, Farmland Preservation Plans, and Trails Plans
Conservation Resources has a unique approach to Open Space Planning and uses an engaging, hands-on community-based, participatory process and educational approach coupled with state-of-the-art GIS mapping and analysis
- Our planning process ensures that the science of natural resource protection, cultural resource protection, and farmland preservation is coupled with local knowledge, needs and desires.
- We see our work as helping to build and engage an open space constituency for a community and training the community to implement their open space plans.
- We strive to work with the community to move as quickly as possible from planning to "doing".
Preservation Funding
A limiting factor for many land preservation efforts is finding and securing adequate and appropriate funding. At the same time, in order to make sure land is permanently preserved, it is important to understand constraints and opportunities provided by various funding sources.
- CRI staff is familiar with all local, state, federal, and private funding sources and programs and can help communities identify and secure appropriate funding for land preservation and conservation projects.
- Collectively, our staff has been involved in thousands of transactions that have preserved, enhanced, or restored hundreds of thousands of acres of open space and farmland.
Landowner Negotiations
With decades of experience with thousands of transactions, Conservation Resources can negotiate with willing landowners on behalf of communities.
- We are experts at working with landowners to help them realize a preservation outcome and have found that selling land or easements is not only in the best interest of the community, but is also the best for the landowners’ bottom line.
- We can also help local governments to structure transactions and engage other public and non-profit partners.
Stewardship
Acquiring and preserving open space is only the first step to establishing a functioning green infrastructure. Many communities don’t know the full extent of the resources they have acquired.
- CRI can develop land inventories and suggest low cost ways to manage natural resources for water protection, habitat and forest management, and public access.
- From identifying trail corridors to implementing deer management programs, our plans are tailored to the individual parcel or entire park system.
GIS services, Trails, and Park Development
A core component of our work is visualizing open space and farmland resources through mapping.
- CRI has a state of the art Geographic Information System (GIS) that can do everything from helping to analyze critical farmland soils and wildlife habitats, to creating publishable maps of preserved properties.
- For our mapping, we draw on the extensive amount of existing land use and natural resource data and also have the ability to create our own data.
For more information or to discuss how we can help, please contact us.