Fauna to Awaken that Quiet Backyard

This year's Backyard Habitat Fair was held on perfectly sunny Saturday at St. James Church in the heart of in Upper Montclair. A great opportunity to find out more about backyard habitat, composting, native plants and local environmental projects and how to get your yard certified by the National Wildlife Federation.

The Montclair Backyard Habitat Project is working with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to promote the creation of habitat friendly to both people and wildlife.If you couldn't make this annual event, you should check out their excellent website

We have a new vision of what a suburban community can be. Moving away from the traditional focus on sterile and even toxic lawns, we seek to preserve and enhance habitat through natural landscaping, using native plants and design techniques that provide food and shelter for birds, butterflies, and other desired wildlife.

The NWF has a program to promote exactly this kind of shift in yard care by encouraging towns to become certified as Community Wildlife Habitats. Our goal is to turn Montclair into a NWF-certified Community Wildlife Habitat by 2010.