Changes and Public Forests The road to unfunded mandates is paved with good intentions in the form of legislation. That’s my take-away with A-4843 and its companion S-3549 now being considered by the New Jersey Legislature. In a nutshell, this bill would require municipalities and nonprofit organizations that acquired land with Green Acres funds or funded recreation efforts on those lands using Green Acres monies, to create and implement a “forest stewardship plan” for any lands amounting to 25 acres or more. Being a public official from a more urbanized community, I’m not knowledgeable about forest management but I suspect that such requirements will come with a need to hire professional consultants to do a combination of assessing, reporting, recommending—and they do not come cheaply. Once there’s a plan, implementation will also require funding that we simply don’t have.