The Long Island Central Pine Barrens (also known as the Long Island Pine Barrens) is a large area of publicly protected pine barrens in Suffolk County, New York, on Long Island, covering more than 100,000 acres (405 km2).
The Barrens operates in a similar manner to Adirondack Park, with public lands managed by a mix of federal, state, county and local public land managers intermixed with private inholdings.
It is Long Island's largest natural area and its last remaining wilderness. The region contains a remnant of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion, whose forests might once have covered a quarter million acres (1,000 km²) on Long Island.
The Central Pine Barrens overlays and recharges a portion of a federally designated sole source aquifer for Long Island's drinking water. All of Long Island's drinking water comes from ground water wells; none of the island's water comes from reservoirs. Almost all of the Peconic River and Carmans River (two of Long Island's four biggest rivers) as well as much of their watersheds are in the Barrens.
Read more about Long Island Central Pine Barrens: History, Sunrise Fire of 1995, Brookhaven Blaze of 2012, Sister Parks
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)