In July, the Greater Princeton Branch of AYLUS (GPA) supported the Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS) for its grant proposal at NJDEP Natural Climate Solutions. GPA President Alissa Wu (7/26, 4 hrs) drafted the following letter, AYLUS National Honorary President Cassie Tammy Wang (7/26, 3 hrs), and AYLUS Chair of Directors Dr. Wang Yi co-signed this letter to show AYLUS full support to FOPOS.
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Dear NJDEP’s RGGI Natural Climate Solutions team,
The Alliance of Youth Leaders in the United States (AYLUS) supports Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS) and believes they will effectively use the funds from the Natural Climate Solutions grant program to help restore and strengthen New Jersey’s ecosystem.
At AYLUS, we recognize the importance of environmental protection, and have thus worked with FOPOS many times. Side by side, we have hacked and uprooted invasive species, protected young trees from deer grazing, and planted flowers and trees in various locations. We have seen firsthand their dedication to restoring dying areas, and know that with the funding from this grant, FOPOS will work hard to reforest the 40 acre dying Norway Spruce and White Pine plantation at the Preserve, helping to make the area more resilient to climate change and invasive species, and allowing it to help decrease atmospheric carbon as new trees grow. This restoration initiative, with your support, will also provide opportunities for more students to engage with the environment and learn about maintaining and restoring it, allowing more opportunities for the younger Princeton community to gain knowledge and develop interests in environmental protection.
For these reasons, we urge NJDEP’s RGGI Natural Climate Solutions team to provide FOPOS with grant funding to carry out this large-scale restoration project.
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On January 19th, 2023, FOPOS received the grant and shared the good news with AYLUS:
Dear Dr. Yi Wang, Cassie Tammy Wang, and Alissa Wu,
We got the grant! Yesterday afternoon NJDEP announced the winners of the Natural Climate Solutions grants and one of them is the $552,000 forest restoration project located in Community Park North, for which the Municipality of Princeton is the recipient and FOPOS is a partner.
Thank you for your letter in support for this project, as well as for sending so many volunteers our way! It looks like there will be lots of opportunities for youth to engage with this project in the coming years.
All the best,
Anna
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Anna Corichi
Director, Natural Resources and Stewardship
Friends of Princeton Open Space
www.fopos.org
The Municipality of Princeton and Friends of Princeton Open Space (“FOPOS”) are applying for a Natural Climate Solutions Grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. These grants, which range from $250,000 to $5,000,000, are funded with monies from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Princeton and FOPOS are applying for a grant to restore 40 acres of forest at Community Park North (“CPN”), a 71.5-acre public park immediately to the east of the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve, and directly south of the fields of historic Tusculum. CPN – which includes the more formal Pettoranello Gardens – is part of the greater Mountain Lakes Recreation Area, comprising nearly 400 acres of preserved open space and farmland with an 8.5-mile trails network maintained by FOPOS and the Municipality. CPN is also within walking distance of current and planned affordable housing. The project is eligible for a grant because it “will establish or reestablish [a] forest communit[y] and reset carbon sequestration trajectories with resilient native
vegetation” in a degraded forest that has lost much of “its capacity to provide important functions and values to people and nature.” (Quoting the Request for Proposals.) CPN was planted in the last century with row upon row of Norway spruce, a non-native tree (native to the European Alps), and Eastern White pine. Both are known to be vulnerable to climate change for varying reasons. Over the decades, a significant portion of the forest has been blown down in major storms or has succumbed to other factors. This has opened up the forest floor to many invasive species, including Oriental bittersweet, Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese stilt grass, Multiflora rose, and others. The first stage of the forest restoration project will involve removing these invasive species with a combination of contracted labor and FOPOS volunteers. Once the invasive species are removed, thousands of native trees and shrubs will be planted. They will be protected by a fence around about a quarter of the project area, and by individual cages elsewhere. These plantings are expected to substantially increase the amount of carbon sequestered by the forest in future years, and to make it more resilient to climate change. They will also provide better habitat for birds and other animals and an improved aesthetic experience for park users. Finally, removal of the invasives will help prevent CPN from serving as an incubator or seed bank for invasive species that can migrate into Mountain Lakes Preserve, where significant restoration work has been undertaken by FOPOS, and other adjacent parks. The planted native trees and shrubs will help ensure regeneration of a healthy forest far into the future, a forest that will store more carbon, mitigating climate change; conserve water in the soil; help prevent siltation and erosion of streams flowing through CPN in increasingly violent storms; and shade out invasive species that would otherwise take over and prevent forest regeneration.