Save the Environment plants pollinator field
Federal agency helps preserve open space in Moorestown.

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By Christine Harkinson, originally published in the Moorestown Sun on May 5, 2022

​Save the Environment of Moorestown (STEM) has partnered with the township and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to turn the 75-acre parcel across from Swedes Run Dog Park into a meadow of native grasses and pollinator plants.
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“We finally got the last 20 acres planted,” said Mark Pensiero, STEM president, who explained how the project started in March of 2020.

“There was an article about the township trying to determine what they should do with that property,” he recalled. “ … I just read that and was like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty amazing and that’s a great property. Wouldn’t that be neat to do something with it?’”

​CHRISTINE HARKINSON/The Sun: STEM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the township have completed planting of native grasses and pollinator plants in the 75-acre parcel across from Swedes Run Dog Park.

After connecting with a representative from the Fish and Wildlife Service, STEM became a participant of the former’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. As described on fws.gov, the program provides free technical and financial assistance to landowners, managers, tribes, corporations, schools and nonprofits interested in improving wildlife habitat on their land.

​“It’s big, and that was really one of the key things that interested them (Fish and Wildlife Service) was that it was big enough that it had value to convert it into a native grasslands and pollinator field,” Pensiero said. “Because it was big enough to attract grassland species of birds and they’re all threatened in the state of New Jersey.”

Pensiero said the township became involved after a proposal from the federal agency.

“The beautiful thing was, (the) U.S. Fish and Wildlife put the whole project together,” he recounted. “A 15-page document of, this is what we want to do here, and with cost estimates and then basically … the partners each have different responsibilities. So that’s the way it was proposed.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service provided the seed and herbicide, the township provided the application for the herbicide and STEM provided for planting of the field.

The field is 70 percent native grasses and 30 percent native pollinators; seeds were planted last fall.

“When we planted, it was just a strip along the full width of the property that borders Westfield Road that’s 100 percent pollinators,” Pensiero said. “It’s going to take a few years for it to become fully established.”

A representative from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service described the formation of the field as “sleep, creep and leap,” from germination to visible activity by the third year. 

“I think it’s going to be a really beautiful asset for the township,” Pensiero said of the open land. “ … We really want to be attracting these threatened bird species, so hopefully we’ll start to see some activity over these couple of years with the grasshopper sparrows and the bobolinks and meadowlarks.”

Last year, in a partnership with the Xerces Society, a nonprofit whose primary mission is to improve the habitat for pollinating insects, STEM installed a 1,300 native plant pollinator garden around the old stone barn adjacent to the dog park that will benefit endangered species.

“I think it’ll be a beautiful compliment to the pollinator garden that we put in last year that we’re continuing to maintain,” Pensiero observed. “I think it’s going to be a beautiful spot that is really going to showcase how pretty a natural landscape can be, and probably more so is the fact we’re going to provide a habitat for these threatened bird species.”

“They’re all threatened in the state of New Jersey because there aren’t many of these big fields anymore that are left in a more natural state,” he added. “So this will be good.”

Save the Environment of Moorestown celebrates 50 years
STEM preserves hundreds of acres, 12 open-space sites.

By Christine Harkinson, originally published in the Moorestown Sun on February 24, 2022

Save the Environment of Moorestown (STEM), a community-based organization dedicated to addressing environmental issues, will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year.

Founded in 1972 by Barbara Rich, Esther Yanai, Kay Smith and Renee Boulis, STEM has preserved and protected more than 275 acres of land in Moorestown, including South Valley Woods, Strawbridge Lake Park, Waterworks Woods and Stokes Hill.

“Because of the knowledge that Esther Yanai had … she was on the planning board, and we decided that with the potential development of the township, we should be involved in where the development happens and is it a good place or not for development,” Rich said.

As noted by STEM President Mark Pensiero, the goals of an open-space plan are to preserve natural systems, provide better close-to-home recreation and improve the public’s experience moving through the landscape.

“One of STEM’s missions is to protect and enhance these open spaces and we’ve done, over the last couple of years, a lot with the Department of Parks and Recreation,” Pensiero noted.

According to its official website, STEM has maintained the health of Moorestown’s farmland with the development of natural and open-space inventories and establishment of the Natural Area Care (NAC) program, among other efforts.

Last year, STEM worked with volunteers from the First United Methodist Church of Moorestown and students from the township high school’s Outdoor Service Club to install eight elevated walkways, four each at the Esther Yanai Preserve and South Valley Woods. A parking lot was also funded by Yanai’s late husband Steve.

“With the trail enhancements we’ve done, it’s a really nice place and it gets a lot of use,” Pensiero said.

Two of STEM’s biggest projects in 2021 – with volunteer help – were installation of a 1,200-native plant pollinator garden at Swede Run Fields and a collaboration with the township and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to turn 75 acres of land across from the dog park into a meadow of native grasses and pollinator plants.

STEM received a grant from the Xerces Society, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve the habitat for pollinating insects in the pollinator garden.
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“It really succeeded beyond my wildest expectations,” Pensiero said. “That’s one of our goals, is to educate people about the environment and about the importance of pollinator plants and native plants, and that native plants can be beautiful.”

Special to The Sun: The native plant pollinator garden at Swede Run Fields was completed last year by Save the Environment of Moorestown (STEM).

Special to The Sun: To help enhance the community, STEM has marked storm drains with medallions to raise awareness of littering.

Among its accomplishments, STEM has marked more than 1,600 storm drains in town to help raise awareness about not disposing of trash in the street.

“We do a lot of things with the township to, in some way, improve the quality of life for Moorestown residents,” Pensiero noted.
He also emphasized the importance of having bigger, preserved open space for wildlife.

“As things get developed, you just have these little pockets of little, tiny woods,” Pensiero explained. “And (a) little, tiny woods isn’t really going to support wildlife (and) birds.”

“STEM, in the future, will still advocate for preserving open space and then taking care of the space we have and making the environment better through just public awareness of native plants and the importance of open space,” he added.

Rich noted STEM accomplishments over the years.

“It took a lot of groundwork to get anything done – going to town council meetings, attending planning board and zoning board hearings – to educate them as much as they educated us,” she said.
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“When you show that, ‘Hey, you can do this, you can put a little garden in,’ and if it’s just a handful of people that we’ve encouraged to do that, that’s a plus,” Pensiero said.

2021