A group of teenagers spent hours in the Pinelands last Thursday planting hundreds of trees to help maintain habitat for endangered wildlife.

By Monday, Twisted Tea bottles and a heap of burnt trash replaced the pretty scene at the Bucks Cove Run Preserve in Pemberton Township, Burlington County.

It was clear ATV drivers had destroyed the saplings, said Jason Howell, stewardship coordinator at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, which spearheaded the volunteer project with YMCA of the Pines. Huge off-road vehicle tire tracks were on the ground, some up to 40-inches wide, he said.

“I came back to install barriers and found everything ripped up," Howell said. “It was completely torn up and a trash fire was still smoldering.”

DEP Spokesman Larry Hajna said park police at nearby Brendan T. Byrne State Forest are aware of the vandalism and taking extra steps to protect the preserve.

“The DEP’s Office of Natural and Historic Resources and State Park Police are aware of this incident. Enforcement is being increased in the area,” Hajna said in an email.

Off-road vehicles are banned on Pinelands land managed by non-profits and the state, though licensed and registered vehicles can be driven on roadways.

ATVs erode protected habitat and muddy up the ground, environmentalists say. For years, advocates have argued that the state should erect more barriers to prevent off-road vehicles from entering protected bogs and wetlands in the 1.1 million-acre nature reserve.

Carol Yard, outdoor center director for YMCA of the Pines, said the organization will not replant the Atlantic white cedar trees until the state builds barriers in more parts of the adjacent Brendan T. Byrne State Forest.

“We just don’t want the plants to be run over again,” Yard said.

Howell says the Rancocas Conservancy acquired the 200-acre Bucks Cove Run Preserve in June for $120,000 from a family. The group has been slowly restoring the land, which Howell said was formerly a blueberry farm before becoming an unmanaged dumping ground for decades.

Since the purchase, Howell said he has installed fencing numerous times around the property, but off-road motorists cut through it. Vandalism has been a recurring problem, with 30 saplings torn out earlier this year following a planting project.

Environmentalists want state park officials to ramp up enforcement on trails within the Byrne forest to stop motorists from traveling through that land and into the preserve.

“I have to put up barriers every couple months,” Howell said. “But what we do doesn’t have much force behind it.”

Avalon Zoppo may be reached at azoppo2@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AvalonZoppo. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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