The purely economic decision by Finch Paper in Glens Falls, now part of a global company, to stop purchasing Adirondack regional trees for its pulp to paper operation and to instead acquire its pulp from far beyond New York’s borders is serious – and deserves the attention it’s getting at New York Almanack, and the worries from forest product industries, harvesters, truckers, suppliers, and landowners elsewhere. [Read more…] about Environmentalists Have Big Stake in Finch Pulp Mill Closure
Adirondack Wild
National Wilderness Act Violations & Why They Matter in NYS
As an advocate for the “forever wild” Forest Preserve, Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve periodically reviews the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s work plans to ensure that activities such as trail maintenance on the public’s Forest Preserve are undertaken in compliance with Article XIV of the state constitution, the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, and DEC regulations. [Read more…] about National Wilderness Act Violations & Why They Matter in NYS
Measuring and Protecting Adirondack Park Remote Places
A canoeist paddling toward the center of Middle Saranac Lake can still hear the dull, monotonous roar of car and truck traffic. Are there any places left in the Adirondacks that could still be considered remote, far removed from the sounds and sights of urbanized America? And if so, how many?
That is what a group of environmental protection organizations – the Adirondack Council, Adirondack Wild, Adirondack Wilderness Advocates and the Rewilding Institute – hope the Adirondack Park Agency and the Department of Environmental Conservation can determine. [Read more…] about Measuring and Protecting Adirondack Park Remote Places
David Gibson: The Price We Must All Pay for the Adirondack Park
Having returned from the 30th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks, hosted by the Adirondack Research Consortium, my notes reflect some of the appeals that the State do more.
That it do more in the climate change era to pay for the lived-in, state and globally significant Adirondack Park; that it do more to invest in community development; and do more to help rural Adirondack towns and villages with small year-round populations defray the high costs of maintaining and rebuilding necessary infrastructure supportive of an influx of seasonal residents and millions of visitors like me. [Read more…] about David Gibson: The Price We Must All Pay for the Adirondack Park
Just 3% of Adirondack Park Is More Three Miles From A Motorized Corridor
New York State’s Adirondack Park offers much less remoteness than you might imagine. In the 2010s when all areas at least three miles from a road and at least two miles from motorized lakes were mapped, it left less than 3% of the Park.
Now a coalition of environmental organizations is asking the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to develop new Policy and Guidance to measure and better protect those remote areas. [Read more…] about Just 3% of Adirondack Park Is More Three Miles From A Motorized Corridor
Court Temporarily Halts Adirondack Marina’s Dock Installations
On March 18, 2026 the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Department, in Albany has granted a motion by Adirondack Park advocates for a preliminary injunction preventing LS Marina, LLC (LSM) from installing new docks and dock covers at its two marina sites located on Lower Saranac Lake. The injunction will remain in effect pending resolution of the appeal. [Read more…] about Court Temporarily Halts Adirondack Marina’s Dock Installations
Adirondack Fragmentation and the Illusion of Green
At its January meeting, Adirondack Park Agency (APA) staff recommended approval of a seven-lot residential subdivision in a Rural Use zone off Route 73 in Keene, NY (the Aylward project). Staff noted that after several years of work with the applicant the subdivision had been modified from previous layouts to reduce ecological impacts to the area’s natural resources. They pointed out that the impacts of each new home and driveway extended beyond their actual footprint by approximately 660 feet, or 200 meters on all sides of the actual footprint.
This figure comes from field work by Adirondack ecologists Drs. Michale Glennon and Heidi Kretser who, in journals such as Landscape and Urban Planning (January, 2013), described how bird species and small mammals sensitive to human development were displaced up to 200 meters from exurban homes in the Adirondack Park, and that the overall ecological impact of a single exurban home in the Adirondacks extends well beyond the building footprints out to 31 acres. “Understanding these impacts can help inform ecologically sensitive subdivision designs,” wrote Drs. Glennon and Kretser. [Read more…] about Adirondack Fragmentation and the Illusion of Green
Carl George: Scientist, Adirondack Advocate & Poet
Carl George, Professor Emeritus at the Biology Department of Union College, died in December at age 95, leaving his wife Christine, and legions of friends at Union College, and around the world. [Read more…] about Carl George: Scientist, Adirondack Advocate & Poet
Cabin Fever & Adirondack Storytelling
As big game season and Veterans’ Day align, I tend to think of my friend, the late Don Brightman, who died in 2019. Don, a resident of Burnt Hills, was a founding board member of Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve. Don visited, fished, hunted, rowed, camped, and canoed the Adirondacks regularly, alone, and with members of his family.
Some of those visits were to an Adirondack cabin, “Beaver House,” named by the man who built the cabin, someone Don knew well, Paul Schaefer. [Read more…] about Cabin Fever & Adirondack Storytelling
Adirondack Park Advocates Win Free Speech Case
A ruling this week from Franklin County Supreme Court has awarded legal fees and costs to defendants Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve and Adirondack Explorer magazine after they successfully defended themselves against a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) during 2024. [Read more…] about Adirondack Park Advocates Win Free Speech Case
Large Subdivision Proposed Above Lake George in the Adirondack Park
A large 30-lot subdivision conservationists are calling “environmentally threatening” in the Town of Bolton above Lake George called Indian Brook Preserve is now before the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) for approval under their Large-Scale Subdivision application. [Read more…] about Large Subdivision Proposed Above Lake George in the Adirondack Park
Dave Gibson: More Big Picture Questions Needed at the APA
At the Adirondack Park Agency’s September meeting, Agency member Rush Holt asked “big picture” questions which, for an Agency that spends much of its time on details, process, and staff talking points, rarely get asked.
His question concerned the amendments to the Park’s State Land Master Plan up for a final vote, and as I recall his question was, and I paraphrase him: Is the State Land Master Plan, or SLMP, working? By that he meant, are these amendments moving the SLMP in the direction of the State Constitution’s ‘forever wild’ protection of the Forest Preserve, or not? [Read more…] about Dave Gibson: More Big Picture Questions Needed at the APA
Paul Schaefer’s Adirondack Legacy Podcast
What does it take to protect six million acres of wild Adirondack Park? In this podcast episode, ADK Talks sits down with David Gibson, conservation leader and author of A Force for Nature: Paul Schaefer’s Adirondack Coalitions.
Gibson takes listeners deep into the remarkable story of Paul Schaefer, the man who rallied hunters, anglers, labor unions, conservationists, and everyday citizens into powerful coalitions that forever changed the fate of the Adirondacks, preserving its wilderness and beauty for generations to come. [Read more…] about Paul Schaefer’s Adirondack Legacy Podcast
Adirondack Wild Announces 2025 Awards
The nonprofit advocate Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve will present their annual awards during the organization’s meeting on Friday, October 10, 2025, at View Arts Center in Old Forge. The public is invited.
This year’s Champion of the Forest Preserve award goes to Chad Dawson whose wilderness recreation research has guided Adirondack Forest Preserve stewardship for decades. [Read more…] about Adirondack Wild Announces 2025 Awards
EPA Plans To End Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards
Local air pollution, regional smog, lung disease, and acceleration of climate change impacts and costs in New York State will all get worse if the Trump regime’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ends tailpipe emission standards and regulations for greenhouse gases as they proposed Tuesday, says the nonprofit advocate Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve. [Read more…] about EPA Plans To End Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards
Norm Van Valkenburgh: Catskill and Adirondack Conservation Champion
Norman J. (Norm) Van Valkenburgh has slipped his earthly bonds. Of this remarkable Catskill native and champion of the public’s wild forests and wildernesses, I can locate no obituary, only a death notice of Norm’s passing in July 2023 in Orono, Maine at the age of 92 or 93. I join many in saying “I miss him.” He influenced me a lot.
Norm, surveyor, administrator, and advocate for the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve, was one consequential state employee because through his conservation work he altered the landscapes of both the Adirondacks and the Catskills for the better. Moreover, Norm wrote part of that history – found in detailed books and articles devoted to the Forest Preserve. Norm was
a stickler for accuracy in his writing and surveying. [Read more…] about Norm Van Valkenburgh: Catskill and Adirondack Conservation Champion
Conservation Minded Design for Adirondack Subdivisions Still Rarely Employed
Ecologist and land use planner George Davis and his staff at the Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st Century wrote in the Commission’s final report in 1990 that “rising land values and increasing costs of land ownership are making it difficult for forest and agriculture-based industries to withstand development pressures. The trends of large and small subdivision of the [Adirondack] Park are there in the landscape to see.”
“The APA [Adirondack Park Agency] estimates that some 21,000 single family homes and 6,500 vacant lots have been added in the Park between 1967-1987 – a 43 percent increase over those 20 years,” the report continued. “In the face of this process to fragment the forests and subdivide the lands along the roadsides and lakeshores, the APA Land Use and Development Plan for the privately held lands will not save the Adirondack forests as a sustainable economic base for long.” [Read more…] about Conservation Minded Design for Adirondack Subdivisions Still Rarely Employed
Adirondack Park Agency Staff: ‘We Have A Hostile and Toxic Work Environment’
On February 12, 2025, the regional field representative for the Public Employees Federation (PEF), the union representing approximately 50,000 State employees with professional, scientific and technical responsibilities, sent an email to each of the eleven members of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) Board.
Attached to the email was a letter, on PEF letterhead and sent on behalf of twenty APA staff members, regarding an alleged “hostile and toxic work environment” at the APA. [Read more…] about Adirondack Park Agency Staff: ‘We Have A Hostile and Toxic Work Environment’
Conservationists: State Should Drop Motor-Vehicle Expansion Plan for Adirondack Park
Adirondack conservation organizations issued a press release on Monday saying they were “pleased that the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) was pumping its brakes on a controversial amendment to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan that would create an administrative loophole and open remote wilderness areas to motorized vehicles.” [Read more…] about Conservationists: State Should Drop Motor-Vehicle Expansion Plan for Adirondack Park
APA Appears Poised to Cede Authority Over State Land Master Plan
For decades the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (APSLMP) has required that State Land Unit Management Plans “will address, on a site specific basis the identification, in intensive use, historic and appropriate portions of wild forest areas accessible by motor vehicles, of measures that can be taken to improve access to and enjoyment of these lands, and associated structures and improvements, by persons with disabilities.”
Wilderness areas are left off this UMP requirement because the prohibition on use of motor vehicles applies to people of all abilities and is fundamental to Wilderness definitions, legal guidelines, and preserving wilderness values.
Now, the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is proposing to delete the above requirement and replace it with a requirement that UMPs will address “the identification of management actions to improve access to and enjoyment of the unit’s lands and waters by persons with disabilities,” inclusive of motorized access and irrespective of how the Forest Preserve unit is classified. [Read more…] about APA Appears Poised to Cede Authority Over State Land Master Plan