The land, which surrounds this small South Jersey community and stretches through Woodland, Tabernacle and Bass River townships, is located in the Pine Barrens, a 1.1 million-acre region that occupies more than 20% of New Jersey's total land area. The DeMarco tract, officially owned by A.R. DeMarco Enterprises, was accumulated by the family beginning in 1940. The family has been using 800 acres as cranberry bogs and another 300 acres as blueberry fields.

But wetlands disputes with the state and business disputes with the Ocean Spray cranberry cooperative soured DeMarco on the cranberry business, forcing a sale that has been in the works for nearly a year. The sale price of $12 million factors out to less than $1,300 an acre, decidedly a bargain in this development-intensive state.

The NJCF, which has raised an estimated $5 million toward the sale, will pay the rest over the next five years, according to officials. The deal, which is currently in the due diligence phase, is expected to close in November.

"In just 11 months, we raised $5 million in private funds to purchase the property, an unprecedented accomplishment," according to NJCF board president Sam Lambert. "We have a lot more fund-raising to do. We need to raise an additional $7 million to complete the purchase, and $3 million for long-term stewardship."

Selling the land for commercial development wasn't an option. Long before the state's current anti-sprawl agenda, the Pine Barrens region had been under tight development constraints that developers have fought for years. Those constraints have been overseen by the Pineland commission, a state agency. As a prelude to the current transaction, the DeMarco family had sold the development rights to their land to the state last year.

The largely undeveloped Pine Barrens is considered an ecological region of international significance, having been designated by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve. It's also the largest swath of open space on the Eastern seaboard between Boston and Richmond, and home to a number of rare species of plants and animals.

The DeMarco tract includes an estimated 1,500 acres of reservoirs and thousands of acres of upland forests, according to NJCF officials, and it connects four state forests and a wildlife management area. The tract will be named for Franklin E. Parker, first chairman of the Pinelands Commission, according to Lambert, and the cranberry bog areas will be called the DeMarco Cranberry Meadows Natural Area.

"Supporters from across New Jersey, and the country, are helping NJCF to take advantage of the best Pinelands conservation opportunity in a generation," according to Lambert.

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