Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve will hold its 11th Annual Membership Meeting on Friday, September 24th at Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek, focusing on the current state of the Adirondack Park Agency at 50 Years (1971-2021) and reimagining the APA in the next 50 years.
The meeting features guest speakers Chad Dawson, an Adirondack Wild board member and former APA Member, and Andrea Hogan, current APA Member and Town Supervisor of Johnsburg.
Andrea Hogan was appointed to the APA Board by Governor Andrew Cuomo in June 2020. Hogan has served as Supervisor for the Town of Johnsburg since her election in 2018. She has worked on broadening the Town’s economic base through business recruitment plans and an emphasis on increasing broadband infrastructure. Hogan represents the Town of Johnsburg on the Warren County Board of Supervisors. She sits on the economic development, environmental concerns and real property, tourism, human services, public works committees, and is chair of the support services committee.
Chad Dawson is a Professor Emeritus of Recreation Resources Management and former Chair of the faculty of Forest and Natural Resources Management at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. In 2016 he was nominated to the APA by Governor Andrew Cuomo and served until December 2020. He is the former Managing Editor of the International Journal of Wilderness, and co-author of Wilderness Management: Stewardship and Protection of Resources and Values.
Adirondack Wild will also be presenting the 2021 Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award and the Wild Stewardship Award.
The Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award will be presented to recently retired Adirondack Park Agency natural resource planners and supervisors Walter (Walt) Linck and Richard (Rick) Weber. For the past 20 years, Linck and Weber steered the APA toward one of its paramount missions, the protection and preservation of the natural resources of the Adirondack Park’s state lands, the Forest Preserve. The award is named for the 20th century’s foremost Adirondack wilderness defender and coalition leader Paul Schaefer (1908-1996).
This year’s Wild Stewardship Award will be presented to Martha Swan, founder and executive director of John Brown Lives! (JBL!). Since 1999, Martha and JBL! have addressed civil rights, climate justice, human trafficking, immigrant rights, mass incarceration and voting rights. JBL! has successfully placed the Adirondacks on the map as a moral as well as protected landscape. Under Martha’s leadership, JBL! became the Friends group of John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba. Thanks to JBL! countless people look to the Adirondack Park as a welcoming place to renew and revive social, moral, and environmental justice through education and action.
The meeting will take place from 1 to 3:15 pm and is free and open to the public. Advance registration is requested, and can be completed by emailing Ken Rimany at krimany@adirondackwild.org. For more information visit the Adirondack Wild website.
Photo of Tannery Pond Community Center provided.
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