Category Archives: Conservation

5 Year Review Presentation

Yesterday, July 13, 2017, we presented a 5 year review of the progress to date regarding the 25 year vision for the Park at the APA monthly meeting. The original vision was presented to the APA at their July meeting in 2012.

The review shows progress on most fronts. Take a look at the presentation here: July 2017 APA meeting final

The punch line is very positive. Also the strength of the alignment behind the original vision shows in the enormous scope and depth of the efforts made. Five years ago one of the questions was how to make progress without anyone in charge? Well we have lots of leaders, and each takes on what they wish to in their area of interest with few others telling them how to proceed. The evidence suggests this approach works astonishingly well. Alignment of all these people helps them see they are not alone, and brings NYS support when and where it is needed.

We do NOT mean to suggest there is no conflict here. There is conflict, but it is often on single point issues that serve as a focal point for energy and fund raising. The classification of Boreas Ponds is an example where focused conflict is real, but the future of the region doesn’t depend upon the outcome. Much of the conflict is between advocacy groups with different points of view and different donors exerting pressure via shifting funding. In the last five years new advocacy groups have popped up. One is a splinter from the ADK Council and ADK Mountain Club that takes on advocating for a wilderness classification for Boreas Ponds. Another is a spin-off from the ADK Nature Conservancy, a revival of the ADK Land Trust. This pattern, where a few people and a donor split from one group over some issue, and form a new group, is a common feature of conservation advocacy across the nation – we have our own version of this behavior pattern but it is not unique.

The big picture is a very positive widely diverse set of efforts that add up to great progress and reason to be optimistic. You can check on how we track progress by looking here: www.ADKfutures.net

Learnings from the Tetons and Yellowstone

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We spent nine nights in the Tetons and Yellowstone in September 2016. They are both small relative to the Adirondacks yet handle 2x the visitors. They are managed by the Park Service. Different companies operate hotels, restaurants stores, gas stations, and such in the Park under concession agreements. Some other observations follow and thoughts about what the Adirondacks might usefully copy are the last section.

The Tetons

The Tetons National Park is small, only 330,000 acres, but speculator. The Jackson, WY airport is actually inside the Park so it is incredibly easy to visit. It is about vistas, hiking, fishing, rafting and wildlife spotting. Dogs are only allowed in limited areas. The season is not over yet but we were told it might approach 5 million visitors for 2016. We visited right after Labor Day. There were notable numbers of Asian tourist groups.

Camping is allowed only by reservation at designated sites. You have to register your plans at a back country office. If you plan on staying at campsites A, B and C you have to show up at each site on the designated day. You are not allowed to stop early and camp somewhere because you are tired or it’s raining, snowing and so on. Back country rangers check in on campsites daily.

Wildlife is abundant. Only hunting elk is legal and only under limited circumstances. Roads have many viewing pullouts – signs tell you that you are approaching one.

Bears, especially brown bears, are a danger. Instead of insisting people carry bear canisters, the Park Service installs bear-proof metal food storage bins at every picnic ground and even back country camping locations. They are big enough for two people to fit inside and there is a latch release on the inside. Bear spray is widely available, heavily advertised and can even be rented. Training information about how to use it is all over the place (e.g. do not spray it into the wind). The discourage people from thinking guns will protect them from a bear. They encourage you to make noise when hiking, talk loudly, carry a bell, and go in groups of three or more. The idea is to avoid surprising a bear.

Yellowstone is Just to the North

Yellowstone is 2000 feet higher and a very different ecological environment full of geysers and other hot water features. It is 2.2 million acres, and the surrounding ecosystem adds another 22 million acres. Ownership outside the Park is mixed private, other federal and there are small towns. It was estimated that 5 millions would visit this year.

There is no hunting in the Park, but the the animal herds move outside the Park where hunting is big business. The wildlife of the Park are treasured. Herds of bison, elk and pronghorn antelope. Grizzly and black bears. Moose.

The same rules about camping and bears apply here are they do in the Tetons.

The big thing here is fire. Days before we arrived, the road between the Tetons and Yellowstone was closed due to a forest fire. It opened the morning we wanted pass, then closed abruptly again in the afternoon. Strong winds came up and the fire exploded. Nearby by tourist facilities were evacuated and closed. They do try to protect buildings and infrastructure, but otherwise they let fires burn using gates to close off roads when necessary (there is a whole system of gates). You see recovering burned areas all over the Park with new pine forests of various ages growing up. Fires there serve the same purpose as beaver here, creating open lands for new plant growth in the open sun. You don’t want to be near a forest fire, or downwind from one, but there is no special concern for the forest lost because you see it recovering all over the region. Smoke clouds were as big as our summertime thunderheads. The next day, it snowed 4-6 inches which helped dampen the fire so the road was re-opened as few days later.

Common Features to Both Parks

No one lives in the Park except Park staff and seasonal workers at various hotels, restaurants and campgrounds. These people all live in dormitory style housing. There are public bathrooms all over the area. 95% of people never get more than 500 feet from a road. Some areas are heavily developed to handle crowds – most notably Old Faithful – but most of it is left untouched.

Areas are routinely closed for maintenance, restoration and recovery. July and August are the busiest months of their short season. The visitors there reflected international visitors but not notably diverse American visitors.

Traffic can back up due to two things. Parking lots get full so waiting cars line up, causing roads to choke up. Also wildlife sightings cause visitors to stop and this turns into a crowd rapidly. Staff is dispatched to place temporary ‘wildlife’ signs so people are aware of the cause of the delay and manage the road side areas.

What Might be Helpful to the Adirondacks?

There dominance of car touring to designated places with something to see and appropriate facilities (bathrooms, photo op pull outs, etc) suggested to me the Adirondacks could do a lot more with simple roadside vistas and pull outs. Simple things like a sign saying “pull out ahead gave drivers time to pull safely off the road to enjoy the location. Encouraging activity other than hiking protects the back country.

Since no one lives in the Parks, staff housing has to be provided. It would see like summer staff housing in the Adirondacks would be a way to add more people and thereby improve the visitor experience.

Park Staff (Rangers and Naturalists) were visible and approachable in many locations. There were trained well and able to answer most questions. Visitor centers have staffed desks with people who knew the most recent road conditions, closures, etc. In Yellowstone there was a Park newspaper. The point is we found information available all over the place from staff in many locations. Here in the Adirondacks, information is harder to find unless you know where to look.

The story of the Parks and their surrounding area is quite similar to the Adirondacks. The core Park areas were easy for almost everyone to support from the beginning. It was only when the Park boundaries were expanded into neighboring ranch land next to the Tetons that locals began to object. The land was purchased in a hidden manner (like the TNC purchase of Finch) and later it became part of the Park by Presidential Executive Order. In the case of Yellowstone, the Park has not grown in acres, but the Yellowstone ecosystem designation was expanded to some 22.2 million acres surrounding the 2.2 million acre Park and this was a root of classic conservation conflicts there. The 22.2 million acres includes small towns and tracts of private ranch land plus other Federal land. The Adirondack Forest Preserve included lots of scattered tracts while the two western Parks are in contiguous blocks of land. Someday, people will come to see that the Adirondack ecosystem will be better served if our Forest Preserve was consolidated into larger blocks and the smaller disassociated scattered parcels were sold to fund contiguous land.

The Jackson airport had a new terminal with 9 gates and is served by a couple of airlines. It makes visiting very easy. We have the Saranac Lake Airport in the Park but it is poorly served by Cape Air to the point that mostly it exists for private aircraft of the uber rich. However we also have Plattsburgh airport which is about to open its expanded terminal with 9 gates plus be able to handle international arrivals and departures. There is potential to use it as a major entry point for air travel to our Park.

What I’ve Learned About Community Solar Farms

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Community solar farms became legal in NYS in May. I had imagined building such a facility at the Keene Transfer Station for a long time. It is our long-closed and capped landfill, now a mowed field with a fabulous view, the garbage/recycling place and town highway operations center. Capped dumps are used for solar farms in many places so I wanted to look into doing this sort of thing here as a model for other towns to follow. The town owns the land, it can’t be used for much else and it must remain open, mowed annually to keep trees from growing. These solar sites need 3-phase power lines in place and Keene has this at the nearby highway department building.

Technically, there is no problem. After all, panels are on often roof tops without creating leaks, and the problem is similar. Like a roof, you cannot perforate the liner covering the capped area, so instead the panels are attached to racks that are held down with heavy pre-cast pieces of concrete laid on the ground. In urban areas where this is done all the time there is no cost penalty. Out here in the sticks, this is not normal, and equipment has to be brought in to do the work. There is an extra DEC permit involved in using a landfill. But with little open land owned by towns in the Park, this could be a viable option.

The problem for the Keene site is that it is too small. These solar farms are allowed be 2mw, but we only have space for about 40% of that. The town needs 1/3 of the site’s capacity for municipal power. What is left can only serve about 50 homes which raises the question of who gets to use it. A full scale site would serve 3-400 homes.

What is happening state-wide is that businesses are organizing to build such projects in all 10 power distribution regions. They will spread the fixed costs of operations across thousands of customers. So our old landfill would be a high cost site serving a small number of residents. That is not a recipe for success.

The people who loan money for these projects are hesitant about using dumps. So we spent some time looking for alternate sites. The town-owned open fields are all in the flood plain, and the financing people won’t fund flood-plain projects because you cannot buy insurance for them. Other town owned land is forested and more remote. The cost of removing a forest, and building 3-phase power lines kill the economics of using most forested land. So businesses are leasing private open fields where power lines already in place. These large multi-site operators will strive to offer solar PV to everyone.

Your best, cheapest, option will be panels on your own land, or roof. Adding the cost of someone else’s land will always make community solar more expensive. It will still be desirable for people with homes in the forest (many in our region), and it may even be 100% financed, but the cheapest option will be using your own land.

The closed, capped, Keene dump is likely still be a good site for a municipal solar PV farm. It is being looked into. The town uses power for various buildings, the drinking water systems (we have two), street lighting, and so on. It may be small enough that it doesn’t need to be on the capped area. But the site is not large enough to use for a 2mw residential solar PV farm.

Other Adirondack towns may have town owned open fields to use, or larger landfills but most will find it hard to come up with a decent site.

The utility amendment to Article 14 that recently achieved first passage had all the ideas about green power stripped out of the early proposal. Given the threats of climate change, actually giving 10 acres to each of our 102 towns for a solar site would be a wise thing to encourage. This would have needed 1020 acres out of 3 million. It could have moved the whole Park into the fight to mitigate climate change, fostering a new sense of active environmentalism, participating in solving environmental problems larger than our own. We have done it before with our successful fight against acid rain. But not-in-my-backyard wisdom prevailed and our region’s leading environmental advocates decided to oppose any green power at all. It is odd to live in a place so protected that we can’t actually participate in the great quest to save the planet. Bill McKibben ran into the same issue years ago when vocally supported building windmills at an old mine site in Johnstown. They were ultimately denied permits. He left the region, and moved to Vermont.

Project Update – Are We Getting the Desired Future Or?

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You know this pattern: Lots of people spend tons of time and money developing a plan. It finishes with a fanfare, then as times passed it is spoken about less frequently. Eventually people forget about the plan. Then work begins on a new plan, because, well, we don’t have one. So, with this post we are trying to add something different to the ADK Futures Project, a review of how we are doing vs the 2011-12 vision – remember the vision?

In 2011-12, the ADK Futures Project ran a series of scenario planning workshops. The desired future was called the Sustainable Life, mixed with tourism and supported by the Forest Preserve. This also turned out to be most attainable among the scenarios, largely because much of it was already underway. The broad alignment supporting the vision was what surprised people. Now it is February 2016. What has happened since July 2012? How does it compare to the desired vision?

We have been collecting data, news items, press releases, reports and such since July 2013 and now have roughly 1000 items. We associate each item to its related event(s). Over time one begins to see trends suggesting what is getting done, and what is not. Some events have lots of news, on other events nothing has happened, and some are clearly never going to happen.

The short conclusion is, wow, we sure are making a lot of progress on a broad range of fronts. Historic expansions of the Forest Preserve have been made. Realignment of the health care system has been done. Building out broadband and cell service is ongoing, making progress each day. The renewal of Champlain Valley farming is gaining momentum. The State and private sector have invested a lot of new money in recreation and tourism facilities. And on and on. It is very impressive, especially given the fact that no one is organizing, coordinating, or leading all this work. It is happening, it seems, with the willing collaboration and distributed effort of many people to get where they collectively want to go. Maybe this is democracy in action in the most positive sense of the word. It is actually quite incredible.

There is too much information for a post. We have written an update that organizes recent developments by theme. For example, Agriculture, Recreation, Energy, Transportation, Arts and Heritage, Healthcare, and more, are each separate topics, where news related to the events used in the 2011-12 workshops has been aggregated and written as a short narrative.

The update is based on data collected, organized and posted here. You can check on the data, follow the links and find out more about the progress we have made. We try to keep ‘evidence’ to things that actually happen; not ongoing debates but how the debates conclude. We try to keep it complete. A grant is made. A project is started, finished or abandoned. The APA makes a decision. Voters pass something. You get the idea. Even with this approach, we already have about 1000 items of evidence. Let us know via email of missing data, including a link to the evidence we should cite. Thanks!

Click here for the PDF file of the update document.

743 Items of Evidence, and Counting

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If you have not seen it, please note we have been monitoring what our region is actually doing vs the ADK Futures scenarios. You can see what progress is being made here where more than 734 items of evidence show substantial progress toward realizing the vision laid out for our sustainable future. More evidence is added all the time.

Recall that we were surprised by the strength and depth of the aligned intentions of most people in the region? Well, if you were surprised by that, the progress since then is actually astonishing, and I encourage you to take a look at the breadth and depth of actions already taken. Encouragingly, no single person is organizing and driving all this activity. The progress is made by by hundreds of people in a distributed fashion. It is clear that the region is making real progress toward what it identified as its desirable and attainable goals.

It is a good news reading, you’ll enjoy it. Look here and click on the header called ‘category’. Then you can look through each category and see what’s been going on.

How are SLMP Issues are Addressed in Other Places?

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I submitted this comment with respect to the SLMP review and wanted to post it here.

My top level comment on the SLMP review is that it should set balance as it’s prime directive, balancing human use and ecological integrity in the context of climate change. I use the term ecological integrity because as climate change impacts the region, we need a mindset that goes beyond protection and preservation.

The forest in 50 years is not likely to be the same as today regardless of efforts we may make. Preserving the forest as is will be beyond our control. Climate change is a global phenomena , and you would have to assume successful global response regimes to believe ‘preservation’ is even possible. Protection will have a different meaning. So those words will not serve us well in the coming decades. Thinking we can expect the forest to be stable is not remotely realistic.

I recognize this is not the same as protection and preservation, language in place now. In the 1970s, no one used a term like ‘ecological integrity’. At times, it will mean less recreation. At times it will mean better science and active interventions for the health of the Forest Preserve. It may mean we work to become hosts to greater number of species at migrations develop.

Seek to Learn from Experience Elsewhere

We Adirondackers love to think of ourselves as a model, and deservedly so. But there is nothing like getting out of the area to see fresh, unencumbered, views of how to manage large scale tracts of public land. The SLMP review would benefit enormously from a modest effort to see how other protected places handle similar tasks. It could be done at a College in the region, by APA staff, one of the NGOs or a volunteer. But, short of that, I can tease you with some observations.

Our travels have taken us to a few other places where there are similar issues with respect to managing large areas of public land. But I was there on vacation, not to study their land classification systems. Still, I enquired when I could so here are a fee ideas to share.

Costa Rica

In the 1970s Costa Rica set up a system of reserves that now cover about 25% of nation. Since then they built an entire eco-tourism industry, complete with hotels, community colleges and university level workforce training, all sorts of guide services, appropriate excursions and attractions.

Relative to the Adirondacks, the most striking feature of their public land management is a “no hunting” policy. It is not allowed. Even in the case of animals that are causing problems in communities (typically crocodiles) they capture them and move them to a different, safe, location.

Guided walks are common and popular. They typically use trails that are very well maintained and heavily used, but they only cover a small fraction of a tract of land, the vast majority of which is left undisturbed. In one area, a white water river, tour operators have camps where guests can stay for one night for a break from the river. Private lands have been set up similarly, as reserves with a small portion developed with trails and guides.

So, my observation is that tourism is a big industry, but usage is concentrated in small portions of protected areas and visitors are often in the company of a paid guide. The guides are highly trained and it is a respected career that young people seek out.

Chile

We visited a Park in southern Chile called Torres del Paine. It is a spectacular, vast and very remote place, several hours drive from anywhere. There are a handful of in-holdings that were originally ranches but are now a few hotels across a range of price points.

The landscape is very different from the Adirondacks. Rolling hills surrounding enormous granite towers, an ice cap, glaciers and so on. One wilderness is 600,000 acres, located right next to another one of similar size. Much of it is classified “wilderness’ and what that means is it’s off-limits. No one can go there, just like we keep people out of public drinking watersheds here. They do issue occasional permits for science expeditions and the like.

Within the wilderness areas, they establish what they call ‘human use corridors’. In these areas there are trails and a handful of locations where you can camp. Most camping is in a controlled area where tents are set up for the season by the Park or a concession operator. You reserve tent space in advance, the number of spaces is limited. You do not need to bring a tent. Options for people with their own tents exist but are limited. The general rule is that people cannot wander off-trail, so, no bushwacking in our local terms. Guides are very common, and often included in hotel packages. They post a list of trips you can join each morning from each hotel. You can go on your own, but most people don’t.

They make a big point about back country rescues: there is no rescue outside the human use corridors. There is no hospital to take people to anywhere nearby. The point is be careful, don’t do anything stupid, because there is no real rescue help to save you. There is no cell service, of course.

These rules sound severe and they are. Mostly they are the result of bad forest fires, attributed to campers burning toilet paper. There are small signs around saying ‘please don’t burn your toilet paper’. It gives a whole new meaning to leave no trace and carry it out.

Italy

We recently returned from a trip to Italy that included visiting a Park in that stretches from the Appinine Mountains to the sea in an area called Cinque Terre. The administrators of this park visited the Adirondacks last year; they have an exchange program with Paul Smith’s College. So we visited their Park and got to see their situation.

The two regions of their Park are vastly different. Cinque Terre is small, by the sea, and crowding of their postcard-perfect towns is their problem. But the mountains, only 60-90 minutes away, area largely vacant with numerous mostly abandoned old villages in the hills. We stayed in one, called Apella. We were chatting about our town (Keene) and they asked how many people live here. We said about 1200. Their population is 9. Clearly they have a different depopulation problem. So, what they are doing, is remodeling the old houses in each village, one-by-one, slowly making each little village into a modest hotel (think B&B scale). It is run by a brother and sister, with their father helping out. And it is working. We arrived and there was a big Italian wedding in progress. They have great environmental protection, but the place is dying economically. So when they use the word ‘sustainable’, they are talking about survival of these tiny towns. Agri-tourism is their response and it appears to be working, slowly.

They do have a simple land classification scheme. Zone A. Zone B. and Zone C. Zone A are especially sensitive areas. People are not allowed to visit there; if it is a water area, boats are not allowed. Zone B areas surround Zone A and are intended to be buffer zones. People can visit these areas, but only with guides that know the rules. Zone C areas are generally accessible with the typical set of rules for a protected landscape. The beauty of this for us, as visitors, is that is it easy to understand, which is important in an area with international visitors.

Summary

I wish these were more than anecdotes. When our SLMP was written, there were no models to examine. Ecology was a new science. For the most part, it has been great. But in the decades that have passed since, protected areas have been set up all over the world with various classification and management schemes. Ecological science has developed dramatically.

I am assuming this SLMP review will have 2 phases.

First, there are two issues that arise from the Finch land acquisition that need to be sorted out. I imagine this can be done fairly quickly and should not be hugely complicated. I think bikes are fine in appropriate areas, like old logging roads all over the Park. I have no issue with a metal bridge, but a wood one, if costs were equal, would look nicer. It is not a big deal.

But the second phase should be a broad, open, review of our land classification scheme. What models have been used in other parts of the world? Can we learn anything useful from their efforts?

We like to think there is no where else like our place. But other numerous protected places have established world wide since the 1970s, each with management and classification schemes. Surely a review of how other places have handled similar tasks would bring some perspective and learning to our SLMP review that simply was impossible decades ago. We should be open minded and embrace the learning opportunity. For small effort, we can leverage the work in the rest of the world.

August 16 Symposium “Toward a More Diverse Adirondack Park’

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The Park’s first diversity symposium is on Saturday August 16 at the SUNY ESF Newcomb Campus from 8am-5pm.

The web site with registration information, the agenda and details can be found here. For additional information please call John Sheehan at the Adk Council, 518-432-1770

Participating organizations include: Adirondack Almanack, Adirondack Council, Adirondack Foundation, Adirondack Futures, John Brown Lives, SUNY ESF, the Common Ground Alliance and The Wild Center.

Here is a link to a post abut the event on the Adk Life blog.

For background, see this current report analyzing diversity in enviro groups and this article about the same issue. It is a bigger issue than the Adirondacks, for sure, but go look at the Boards and staff of the enviro groups related to our Park for some insight about us. It isn’t conscious, I don’t believe, but the situation speaks for itself.

The Park’s demographics are strikingly at variance with the rest of NY State, and particularly the cities, in most every dimension from age to race, to language, to sexual orientation and on down the list. This widening gap is one possible route to failure in the Park’s future. Today we get the full attention of Albany, but there is nothing the suggest it will stay this way. A big election, with high city voter turnout, could change a lot of things pretty quickly.

A few decades back, the issue was ‘home rule’ being trumped by excessive outside attention. But now the risk suggested by demographic trends is the actually opposite. It is the possibility that the Park will become a largely neglected, abandoned, and increasingly irrelevant backwater of the State. We need to find ways to make the people who visit and live here a better reflection of the state’s population.

The Park and the Forest Preserve exist at the pleasure of NY State voters. The lofty notion that it is ‘forever’ is only actually true until an amendment on the ballot changes it. It is not nearly the bedrock certainty that the tone of the Forever Wild language implies.

Please come join us at this symposium to share, to think, and to learn about this challenge to our region. Think of this as a starting point. See you on August 16th?

Thanks to Pete Nelson for actually getting attention focused on this issue.

CGA Amendment Working Group Offers Whitepaper

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At the CGA Forum in July 2012, we presented the results of the ADK Futures work, and a number of working groups dove into various topics during the afternoon. BTW, this year’s CGA Forum will use a workgroup format again.

One of those July 2012 groups discussed amendments to help towns get broadband, water, rebuild bridges more wisely, etc. Neil Woodward and Kayrn Richards left with the task of writing up the notes and getting others involved. By October 2012 a working group had organized itself and I wrote about it here.

Now it is June of 2014, and we are pleased to say good work has been done on the data gathering and legal thinking. It has come far enough to be worth sharing for considered discussion. There is no rush. It’s taken 22 months to get this far, and it improved over time. This is a complicated topic. So, we offer a deeply considered proposal that we hope will find wide support and success over time. We want your pubic voice in support, and we also want to hear concerns. Take the time to download the map data (warning, large files involved) and read the other two appendices. This is not intended as a yes-or-no offer, it is an invitation for ideas to resolve the issues we find present.

Please pass along this information as you wish. We welcome comments here (you need to create an account with your real name and log in) and anywhere else discussions might take place. We expect to write followups here as the summer unfolds so you might want to check back from time to time.

Click here to download the CGA Amendment Working Group White Paper.

Two More Sets of Ranking Data

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Even though the main thrust of the ADK Futures project has moved on to implementation and tracking progress toward the vision, we continue to give talks where we introduce new groups to the original six scenarios and the issues that they frame for the Park. There are plenty of people that have not heard them yet and there is always a good discussion.

Recently we gave a talk at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. About 40 attended and we had an excellent discussion about the scenarios. In the middle of our talk, after we presented the endstates, we asked them to do the ranking exercise for desirability and attainability. The results from 31 people turned out to line up very well with the overall results from the workshop series as you can see in the table below. The ranking on desirability is almost identical to the workshop series. The attainablity rankings were slightly different, putting the Usable Park (B) first instead of Sustainable Life (C). Also, surprisingly, the Adirondack County (D) endstate was seen as more attainable than in the averages but thinking of the Park as a region is much more widely talked about now than it was.

In addition, we published a condensed version of the six endstates in Adirondack Life this spring with a link to the magazine’s website where readers could do the ranking exercise. Although hundreds of people started the exercise, only 91 completed it. These rankings are shown in the table below. C and B are still the top in desirability. But the Wild Park (A) ranks third instead of fourth with this group. Also Adirondack State Forest (F) got a slightly higher score and is fifth instead of sixth. The attainability ratings are very different with Sustainable Life (C) is only third. Wild Park (A) again ranks higher than in the workshop series.

These results are similar to those of two half-day workshops we did during 2012. One was with a group of seasonal residents. The other was a group of Paul Smith students in a land use planning class. The Wild Park scenario was an attempt to capture the point of view of a person who doesn’t live in the Park and is not involved in the issues of economy and community building in the region.

These two data sets overall continue to support the consensus vision that is based on the Sustainable Life (C), with a sustainable version of the Usable Park (B), and continued protection of the Forest Preserve as a Wild Park (A).

Feels Like Progress

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In the past few weeks we have attended Local Government Day, Adirondack Day in the Capital, and the Adirondack Research Consortium. In each case, we were left with the feeling that the Adirondacks is moving forward on many fronts. There is a sense of optimism and progress. Most importantly, collaboration and Park-wide thinking are the rules of the day.

Local Government Day

This is an annual event co-sponsored by the APA and AATV (Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages). Usually this event happens in March when we are away but they moved it into late April this year and we were pleased to be able to attend. The senior management from both DEC and APA were there listening hard to the large number of local government reps who came. The Adirondack Partnership and its Director, Bill Farber, were front and center touting their new Economic Strategies development project that has been awarded to a group of consulting firms led by River Street Planning and Development of Troy. This project will take the work of the ADK Futures project as a starting point to develop much more detailed strategies for economic development in the region and test them against market data.

The main focus of the day we attended was the economic potential of tourism. There was a presentation by Jim McKenna on the about-to-be-released Adirondack Park Outdoor Recreation Strategy, which is the product of a 25 person volunteer team comprised of public, private and non-profit leaders. This effort has characterized the main factors that hold back better development of the Park’s resources to provide more economic opportunity to the towns and villages of the region. The group made it’s initial priority the development of a web portal to bring together all information about recreational opportunities, facilities and visitor amenities across the entire Park. This is aimed at what the team saw as a key problem: inadequate information available to prospective visitors about the diverse recreational opportunities in the Park and the poor distribution of activities and events across the entire area. This web portal was recently funded in this years Regional Economic Development grants and its development has already started.

Next we heard about the potential economic benefits of better developing the recreational opportunities of the Park. Most importantly, we learned how the five towns (Newcomb, Minerva, Indian Lake, North Hudson and Long Lake) affected most by the new NYS acquisition of Finch Pruyn lands are working together to come up with plans for developing recreational and visitor facilities to capture some local economic benefit. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has included a half million dollar grant to the towns to help in this effort. DEC is working closely with the team, too. This kind of partnership is a major step in the right direction and TNC, in particular, should be commended for their efforts to insure that all benefit from the biggest addition to the Forest Preserve in 100 years.

Overall we heard that there is great potential if we diversify the offerings to visitors, most of whom only want a 1 to 2 hour hike. This means diversifying access and making it possible for the less fit or elderly to enjoy a portion of the outdoors. Others want something other than hiking, such as biking, boating, etc. Visitors also consider sight seeing, relaxing, dining and shopping an important part of their vacation. Grassroots efforts to develop new activities are also key, such as the Cranberry 50 development of hiking trails. In the end though, there needs to be investment in lodging if we are to unlock the economic potential of the region. We need to think hard about the kinds of incentives and grants that can be put together to attract the necessary private investment. Our relatively short visitor seasons and increasingly iffy winter weather make these kinds of investments very risky and they won’t happen if local and State government don’t sweeten the pot.

What struck us overall about the event was the lack of griping and pointing fingers. Instead there was a refreshing sense of optimism and cooperation. The ADK Futures project was cited repeatedly as one more sign that we are in a new era in the Park, one in which we are moving forward.

Adirondack Day

April 29 was the first Adirondack Day in the “well” of the State Legislative Office building in Albany. Groups around the State use this space to promote their region or cause to legislators, their staff, and executive branch staff. With an incredible outpouring of volunteer support, our region pulled together rich displays about conservation, fighting invasives, recreation, culture, history, and our successes on the economic development front. Most prominent, though, were the displays and samples of our burgeoning local food movement. It was great to see so many of our key organizations working together to promote the entire region.

It turns out that this very day the Governor announced his White Water Canoe Challenge. The effort clearly paid off in terms of greater awareness in Albany to the many ways the Adirondacks are moving ahead these days. At one point, Mr. Cuomo did make an appearance accompanied by Senator Betty Little and visited a number of the displays. Betty spotted us and steered the Governor our way for a brief introduction.

Adirondack Research Consortium

Last week we participated in the Adirondack Research Consortium (ARC) conference in Lake Placid. The opening keynote speakers were Andrew Revkin author of “Dot Earth” blog on the New York Times, and Stephen Jackson, Director of the Southwest Climate Center. Both held balanced views on climate change that emphasized the adaptability of nature and avoidance of extreme points of view. Dr. Jackson showed fossil data that indicated fast and major swings in climate have hit the planet before and had nothing to do with humans. Although we are clearly the major factor driving climate change now, we are not the only part of the system that can do so. Mr. Revkin introduced the idea that all environmental thinking must now include humans as part of the system, part of the solution and he pointed to the Adirondacks as an example. Getting to a pre-human wild state is simply not possible. For better or worse we are like gods, but as Stewart Brand said, “we better get good at it”. He made the point that climate change is a big messy problem with humans right in the middle of it and the Adirondacks are a big messy problem with humans in the middle of it. Dr. Jackson also talked about the need for researchers to learn how to better communicate and engage with the public. Scientists need to understand the public doesn’t react to data the way they do. In general, data never changes anyone’s mind. We need more people and organizations that are boundary spanners, that can bridge gaps between researchers and stakeholders. The Adirondack Research Consortium is one of those.

Bob Stegemann, DEC Region 5 Director, next stepped in for Joe Martens, DEC Commissioner, who had to be at a meeting with the Governor that day. Bob’s message was that the Adirondack’s are doing better than they have in many decades. We are completing the largest addition to the Forest Preserve in 100 years and all 26 town boards affected agreed to support it. And in the past 20 years we have added nearly 800,000 acres of easement lands inside the Blue Line. But, he emphasized, the towns and villages now need to thrive as the Forest Preserve has thrived. We need to work harder to ensure that the State land benefits local communities. We need stronger communities if they are going to be able to adapt to climate change and the more severe weather it is going to throw at us.

Bob also pointed out that as the Forest Preserve has grown (it is four times as large as it was when Article XIV was enacted) the issues for towns and villages with regard to the Forest Preserve have grown. He argued for consideration of an expanded transportation land bank to cover county and town roads. The current one only covers State highways, but they are not the only ones with bad curves, utility poles that are hazards, culverts that need upgrading, etc. He also suggested that a utility land bank be considered to enable modernization of existing utilities where Forest Preserve prevents siting of power, communications, water and sewer lines. We, too believe that carefully crafted and vetted versions of these ideas could be effective win-win modifications to the existing regulatory strictures in the Park. He also encouraged passage of the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) bill before the legislature and that more towns use APA map amendments to implement community development proposals. He ended by emphasizing the threat the invasive species pose to our great Park.

Next there was a panel of energy industry executives, but I must admit to not really learning much that was new, except that the big generators are concerned about the “threat” of distributed power production. We are so reminded of the way the Internet threatened the old, stodgy telcos.

Day 2 of the conference was kicked off with a panel of Dave Mason, Steve Englehart of AARCH and Kate Fish of ANCA. In keeping with the theme of the conference, Dave presented the 25 year future vision developed by our project. Then Steve provided the historical perspective on how the vision is rooted in our traditions and out landscape. Kate then talked about all the projects and efforts that are moving us toward the vision, emphasizing the two big wins for the North Country in the Regional Economic Development Council process.

In response to some questions after the talk, the Futures Project with CGA agreed to compile suggestions for a research agenda for the region as input to the Consortium.

This was our third ARC and this one was very different in tone and substance from the first one we went to in May 2011. We were just starting our research about the Adirondacks for the Futures project. The final plenary presentation that year was about the APRAP report, all doom and gloom. That effort provided an important baseline of data, but it didn’t point to a way out of the funk we were in. When we were doing our strategic planning consulting back in the ’90s, we found over and over again that data, by itself, doesn’t usually change people’s minds or lead to action. People use data to support what they already believe. To make progress you need to get people to let go of past beliefs and assumptions, to unlearn them as we used to say. Until you can crack open the current belief system or mental models of people, they can’t look afresh at a situation and see the possibility of positive change. We may be seeing that happen now.