Saving the Watchung Ridge Forest
For the past year, Elumenate Media has been documenting the efforts of We Care, a group of residents from the surrounding community of West Orange, New Jersey, who have spent more than 25 years fighting to save one of the last remaining mature forests in the Watchung Mountains from development.
During that time, we’ve gotten to know the people behind this decades-long fight and spent countless hours exploring and documenting the mountaintop itself, gaining an intimate understanding of just how much is at stake.
For decades, a billionaire developer has been trying to develop this approximately 120-acre forest on the Second Watchung Mountain Ridge in West Orange. The latest proposal calls for 496 housing units in four buildings, requiring the removal of thousands of trees and permanently altering a sensitive ecological system.
We Care and the environmental experts working alongside them have raised extensive concerns about the proposed development, including steep slopes, wetlands, headwater streams, flooding, erosion, land instability and limited emergency access. The property also contains ceremonial stone landscapes connected to the ancestral history of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation.
Earlier this year, We Care won an important victory when the West Orange Planning Board failed to approve the development application following a 4–4 vote. But the developer is appealing that decision, and the fight to permanently preserve this forest continues.
Elumenate Media has been working on a full-length documentary exploring this extraordinary landscape, the people who have dedicated decades to protecting it, and the environmental, historical and cultural significance of what could be lost forever.
That documentary is coming soon.
In the meantime, we’re sharing this promotional video produced for We Care to help bring attention to their ongoing efforts and the urgent need to protect this irreplaceable forest.
To learn more about We Care’s efforts or make a donation to help save the Watchung Ridge Forest, visit: savewatchungforest.org