Featured Writers: Dan Plumley and David Gibson – Partners, Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve

Embracing Forever Wild, and Advancing the Values of a Wild Adirondack Park

Challenges and Recommendations Issued by Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve On the 40th Anniversary of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan

An Urgent Call for Vision The New York State Forest Preserve was created in law 127 years ago. It has grown to become not only one of the most important assets in New York State’s illustrious history, but in United States and North American history. International attention has been focused on the Forest Preserve and the Adirondack and Catskill Parks for some time, as nations struggle to permanently safeguard forests from the degradation and destructive land use changes that lead to long-term ecological and economic disaster. Generations of New Yorkers have created, defended, safeguarded, increased and managed our Forest Preserve as a wilderness since 1885.

Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve congratulates the Adirondack Park Agency for commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, and for the excellent discussion about its historical origins and contemporary challenges. As was stated, the Master Plan is a very important tool for managing our wild lands, yet it is also limited in its scope and vision for a wild landscape. Greater emphasis should be placed on the legacy and benefits of Forever Wild by our leaders, starting with Governor Andrew Cuomo and all our state agencies. We can envision a brighter future for the globally unique Adirondack and Catskill Parks, wild lands, communities and citizens if the full promise of Article XIV is realized. Throughout the globe, the Adirondack Park is considered models for many parks and protected areas. The 40th anniversary of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan presents an excellent opportunity to stretch our imaginations and enhance our wild lands as a source of much pride and as agents of positive change in our state and in our world.

In a time of rapid change in our society, economy and climate, how can the Forever Wild policies applying to the Forest Preserve be expanded and broadened to benefit our great State of New York? How should the economic assets of the Forest Preserve and our wild land systems be properly evaluated and maximized? Both government and private sectors should engage in dialogue and strive to attain a new, exciting and inclusive vision for the protection of the Adirondack Park and Catskill Parks wildness and “Forever Wild” constitutionally protected lands for many human generations to come.

Adirondack Wild will be a full partner in instigating and embracing dialogue, partnerships and collaborations to lend fresh vision and purpose for our wild lands, resources and communities, and then move from visioning to action. Thought provoking ideas from a variety of wilderness thinkers and advocates can already be found under Dialogue for the Wild at www.adirondackwild.org. This report incorporates some of that thinking.

The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (SLMP or Master Plan) that defines and guides public use and management of our State’s “forever wild” Forest Preserve turns 40 this month. The Master Plan’s guidelines apply to Forest Preserve which constitutes 85 % of all wild lands in the northeastern United States. In any re-examination, it is crucial to remember that the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve inspired the drafting of the National Wilderness Preservation Act and serves as a crucial, working global model for parks and protected areas from the United States to Russia, Tibet and China to Europe, Central and South American nations and beyond.

Paramount Purpose, Statewide Constituency: Too often, state agencies permit the Master Plan to be treated and debated in public as a mere stricture on what types of outdoor recreation are permitted on the Forest Preserve, or as an attempt to “balance” motorized and non-motorized recreation. In recent years there have been long debates about how many new miles of snowmobile trail constituted a “material increase.” The Plan is not a balancing act. It is, instead, the way New Yorkers carry out Article XIV – the “forever wild” law in our State Constitution – on the ground every single day. That Article states that “the lands of the state …constituting the forest preserve…shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.” “Forever kept” implies both a management system that honors, maintains and restores wild forest conditions, and a forever promise to future generations that enhancing such conditions is of the highest priority.

The Master Plan honors this promise by stating on page 1: “If there is a unifying theme to the master plan, it is that the protection and preservation of the natural resources of the state lands within the Park must be paramount. Human use and enjoyment of those lands should be permitted and encouraged, so long as the resources in their physical and biological context as well their social or psychological aspects are not degraded. This theme is drawn from …a century of the public’s demonstrated attitude toward the forest preserve and the Adirondack Park.” The authors of the Plan knew that Article XIV’s origins, amendments and overall support for its Section 1 derive from the people, and that interpretation of the Master Plan also must respect sentiments and values of all New Yorkers.

Master Plan and Wilderness Act: It is intentional that the Wilderness definition in the SLMP and in the federal Wilderness Act are exactly the same: “A wilderness area, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man – where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Restraint and Humility: To quote Ed Zahniser: “in its broadest sweep, the Wilderness Act is a statement of social ethics. It is about restraint and humility for what we do not know about the land organism…it expresses our intent to honor natural conditions and wilderness character, and not to trammel them, not to lay our human purposes, intents and understandings on the biota there… it is a calling back to fundamental right relationships both within the human community and with the divine.”

It’s all Forest Preserve – all to be “kept forever as wild forest lands.”: Whether Wilderness, Primitive, Canoe, Wild Forest, Intensive Use and other minor classifications, the Master Plan is about restraining ourselves in nature, and managing our recreation so that we protect and preserve natural resources, ecological integrity and wild character. In no way does the SLMP treat Wild Forest as an inferior part of the Forest Preserve compared with Wilderness or Primitive. All units of Forest Preserve are included in Article XIV, Section 1. The Plan contains numerous references to use of restraint and limiting recreational demands on Wild Forest. For instance, read the following Wild Forest guideline:

“All types of recreational uses considered appropriate for wilderness areas are compatible with wild forest and, in addition, snowmobiling, motorboating and travel by jeep or other motor vehicles on a limited and regulated basis that will not materially increase motorized uses that conformed to the Master Plan at the time of its adoption in 1972 and will not adversely affect the essentially wild character of the land are permitted.”

Too many of our policy makers improperly regard Wild Forest as a kind of sacrifice zone within the Forest Preserve. That was apparent during the discussion and approval of Snowmobile Trail guidelines. We need discerning and mission-driven Commissioners who will see to it that basic wilderness guidelines apply to all Forest Preserve. Where Wilderness Preservation Began: Howard Zahniser became The Wilderness Society’s first executive, and editor of its Living Wilderness magazine in 1945. He knew nothing of the Adirondacks until he accepted an invitation in 1946 from Paul Schaefer to hike into the High Peaks region. At the Flowed Lands the two men discussed Zahnie’s vision of a national wilderness preservation program founded upon New York’s Forever Wild constitutional article. In 1957, Zahniser addressed a conference of the NYS Conservation Council in Albany with a talk that he titled “Where Wilderness Preservation Began.” The central purpose of the Wilderness bill in the US Congress, was to “spread from here throughout the nation the kind of program you in New York State have worked out here through the years. You have a wonderful phrase here, ‘forever wild,’ which is an inspiration and a characterization of the nature of our own undertaking.” It took eighteen years, and 66 drafts before the National Wilderness Preservation Act became law in 1964. Today, it protects and manages as Wilderness over 105 million acres across the United States.

The founder of The Wilderness Society, Bob Marshall, was brought up to breath Adirondack mountain air. His father was a noted civil rights attorney and founder of the College of Forestry at Syracuse. Louis Marshall, who also authored the words of New York’s Forever Wild constitutional amendment of 1894 now known as Article XIV, Section 1. On July 15, 1932 Bob, just back from Alaska, appeared on the summit of Mount Marcy the very moment that a young Paul Schaefer of Schenectady summited. Schaefer was on a mission to photograph the forest fires then raging up to the summit of North River Mountain, and the uncontrolled logging of virgin spruce and fir above 2500 on Mt. Adams. Paul pointed all this out to Bob, as well as the pending constitutional amendment facing the voters that would authorize commercial cabins and roads anywhere on the Forest Preserve. Upset by what he heard, Bob said to Paul: “we simply must band together – all of us who love the wilderness. We must fight together – wherever and whenever wilderness is attacked. We must mobilize all of our resources, all of our energies, all of our devotion to the wilderness.”

From that day, Bob and Paul and thousands of others did band together. That fall of 1932, the constitutional amendment that would have eviscerated “forever wild” was defeated by over 700,000 votes. The Wilderness Society formed in 1935. The life of Bob Marshall is another big reason why the Adirondacks are where wilderness preservation began in America.

Wild Lands Unique to the Park in Jeopardy: Governor Andrew Cuomo, our state agencies and the People of New York State should rise today to the challenge of the crucial wilderness work now before us. New York’s legacy of wilderness is facing a crisis of leadership. Today’s leaders extol “balance” between environment and economy, a dichotomy that has been thoroughly discredited around the world, since a strong economy is founded upon and completely integrated with a healthy environment. “Balance” then becomes a mockery of true leadership when compromises against environmental principles weaken the application of laws to protect wild lands and resources to favor more politically correct or saleable, though misguided, actions.

We need today’s leaders to reawaken to our wilderness values, and to articulate them in public, and to uphold them in difficult decisions. Yet, in recent years our agencies have not done so. In 2010 the APA caved to public pressure and, contrary to the Master Plan’s clear guidelines, reclassified mountain summits so that steel fire towers could be maintained indefinitely on lands designated to be managed as Wilderness. Since 2005, our DEC has similarly retreated by repeatedly permitting group competitive events in three Wilderness areas contrary to Wilderness principles and guidelines. These decisions compromise our laws, and fragment and degrade the Park’s wilderness resource.

Planning for a Future: Distinguished environmental law professor Nick Robinson of Pace University School of Law challenges our State’s leaders and all State agencies to affirm their duty, under Article XIV, the State Environmental Quality Review Act, and other laws, to broaden their vision and enhance the Forest Preserve:

“There is a growing urgency in our present state of affairs; the effects of climate change magnify the importance of the Forest Preserve. We need to expand the reach of the “forever wild” clause throughout the Adirondacks, if the people and nature of this region are to prosper in the future. New York’s “forever wild” Forest Preserve has been far too neglected at home, while serving as a model for wilderness laws nationally and internationally. In the coming decades it must be embraced again at home, once again to be a model for the changes that humans will need to find as we adapt to climate change all over the Earth. We must build nature’s systems into our own social and economic lives, if we and nature are to endure in the future as we have in the past.”

“The Article XIV ‘forever wild’ provisions are not merely dry legal restrictions, to be forgotten unless tripped over as a technicality, as when an agency of government wants to act to directly harm the Forest Preserve. By establishing a fundamental norm for the “lands” of the Forest Preserve, the Constitution directs all agents of the government, and indeed all citizens, to enhance the “wild” or naturally functioning ecological conditions in and around the Adirondacks. These enhancements can, and should, be realized through diverse legal means. The Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Park Agency both possess many, but by no means all, of the statutory legal authority to enhance the Forest Preserve. In this era of climate change, it is time to examine which other agencies of government are obliged to deploy their powers so as to enhance the Forest Preserve…All agencies of state and local governments in New York must act to nurture the preserve of forest within the Adirondacks and Catskills” (from “Forever Wild”: New York’s Constitutional Mandates to Enhance the Forest Preserve By Nicholas A. Robinson, Gilbert & Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law, Pace University School of Law, Feb. 15, 2007).

George Davis, the Adirondack Park Agency’s first staff ecologist who did so much to study and plan for the Park during the Rockefeller and Cuomo Commissions, and who first directed the APA’s planning, said this about the need for clear mission for a wild landscape:

“What do people want for the Adirondacks? We don’t plan for the future. I envision the basic purpose of park planning to be to define the qualities of a park we seek at some date in the future. If you can do that, then you give the day-to-day decision makers a very easy question to ask themselves: which decision is going to lead me in a direction toward those qualities? But to date, we have not defined…where we want the park to be in future years. This has to be done” (from The Great Experiment in Conservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park, Syracuse University Press, 2009).

Our State Lands within the Adirondack and Catskill Parks are integral parts of all of our park towns and communities. They can be better managed for their wild land values and benefits in an integrated fashion if our leaders unite behind wild land goals that serve both nature and people. First and foremost, however, APA Chairwoman Ulrich and the Adirondack Park Agency, as well as Governor Cuomo should recognize that our wilderness is less “common ground,” and more uncommon landscape, unique, precious and so rare in the Eastern United States.

We live in a home “where wilderness preservation began” in America. That pride should inspire the agencies to assert their critical role to research long-term trends in the Park, and to plan accordingly. Implementation will require a trends analysis to assess where we stand in terms of the Park’s ecological integrity, and 10, 50, 100 years from now, inclusive of the many economic, social and cultural values of park communities that serve as critical gateways to the Forest Preserve. This visioning effort would place a premium on identifying strategies that both park communities, non-government stakeholders, the general public and state agencies can employ together to advance wild land and ecological integrity on the forest preserve while enhancing and strengthening those same values on adjacent private lands and waters.

Recommendations: On this 40th anniversary of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve recognizes the Master Plan for the tremendous asset that it is, yet challenges Governor Cuomo, APA, DEC and all state agencies to forthrightly evaluate SLMP guidelines and other legal tools which are not taking full advantage of advances in the understanding of wild land management, ecological sciences and landscape ecology. Our recommendations to Governor Cuomo and his state agencies follow.

1. DEC, APA, DOT and all State agencies jointly should:

• Endeavor to work in united fashion to strongly uphold Article XIV, the “Forever Wild” Act and to work together to enhance policies, lands, forests, waters and wildlife of the Forest Preserve;
• examine and align SEQRA and other regulations to assure that the mandate of Article XIV, Section 1 of the NYS Constitution is carried out by each agency;
• manage State Lands and State-held conservation easements for their ecological integrity, to advance biological diversity, and to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Motorized Uses: In the building of new roads and extension of motorized uses come some of the gravest threats to the Adirondack Park’s ecological integrity. A basic Master Plan guideline states that motorized uses on the Forest Preserve shall not materially change from the date of the SLMP’s original adoption in 1972. APA is not planning, monitoring, or controlling a myriad of such uses. DEC has yet to promulgate an All-Terrain Vehicle Policy, or strengthen its motorized use regulations in alignment with Article XIV. Both agencies regularly plan for development and construction of many new miles of snowmobile “connector corridor” trails through Wild Forest without sufficient environmental impact review or habitat context, potentially degrading wild land resources under guidelines that should have been subject to public hearings, but were not.

2. APA should plan for and limit all motorized uses on the Forest Preserve, including new and emerging recreational vehicles, undertake carrying capacity and limits of acceptable change studies, and subject the Snowmobile Trail management guidelines and All-Terrain Vehicle Policy to statewide public hearings. Given the well recognized negative impacts of ATV’s on soil, water, wildlife habitat and soundscapes, it is imperative that they be prohibited from the Forest Preserve.

Managing for ecological integrity demands that ecological variables are targeted and measurable indices chosen by which to measure achievement towards management objectives. Little of this is happening. Few people are trained and hired by either agency to undertake such ecological work. Despite the passage of 40 years since the SLMP’s creation, systematic undertaking of baseline ecological studies in the Park has been sporadic and poorly sustained. In a time of more intense weather and invasive species introductions due to climate change, the gap in information that prevents us from tracking and predicting change in our wild land system as renowned and important as the Adirondacks is alarming. APA’s study and analysis of current trends would stimulate scientific research, education and related employment. It could stimulate a global research program in the Park in recognition of the Park’s status within the Champlain-Adirondack International Biosphere Reserve.

3. APA and DEC should undertake:

• a long-term trends analysis of ecological change in the Park;
• a systems approach to managing all parts of the Forest Preserve that measures indices of ecosystem health including wildlife, vegetation, habitat, climate, water and air quality, changes in recreational pressures on sensitive ecosystems, and evaluates inter-relationships between wild lands and the larger Park landscape;
• a plan to assure that a rich and full compliment of the Park’s biological diversity and habitats are contained within the Forest Preserve;
• study and make conservation recommendations for the wildest of our Park’s lakes which appear to exhibit negligible direct human impacts and little to no history of pollution, or significant change in chemical or faunal composition;
• needed additional proactive planning work with generous public participation to develop a united strategy to address proactively monitor for, control, elimination or mitigation of invasive aquatic and terrestrial plants, insects and animals and their related impacts on public and private wild lands, using minimum tool policies to safeguard the Forest Preserve, conservation easement lands and adjacent private forest resources;
• SLMP amendment to clearly articulate how management plans and regulations will control impacts of group size resulting from competitive recreational and other events whereby group size and activities exceed wilderness guidelines;

4. After appropriate study and public hearings, APA and DEC should seek amendments to the SLMP to unite the myriad units of Forest Preserve, consolidate unit boundaries on a regional basis, and systematically apply the most critical management tools to a consolidated region. In this process, take into account scientific principles of ecological integrity and connectivity between units, and goals of biological diversity, wild forest character, as well as community and recreational objectives.

Monitoring Unit Management Plans (UMP) under the Adirondack Park Agency and NYS-DEC have seen some positive gains over the past decade. However, as APA Commissioner Richard Booth pointed out last month, few reports on actual progress are ever provided to the Agency following UMP adoption. For example, the High Peaks, Dix and Giant Wilderness Areas, the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area and other unit plans were deemed to comply with the SLMP by APA on condition that important research, monitoring and user-management activity took place. This work was to be done in a matter of 3 years after approval, yet nobody knows if it has been accomplished.

5. APA state lands staff should report each month on progress to achieve management recommendations in all unit management plans deemed to comply with wild land management principles and the Master Plan. 800,000 acres of Conservation Easements held by the State of New York are a critical part of the wild land network in the Park, and are key to achieving goals of Park-wide ecological integrity, yet are not properly monitored, nor are baseline studies systematically undertaken. Guidelines for their management and use are not included in the Master Plan, and when they are most attention is focused on public recreation, and not on achieving goals of ecological integrity. Public interest and investment in this program demands that conservation objectives are achieved through more integrated, collaborative DEC and APA oversight. This should be a high priority for integrated ecosystem-based, wild land management.

6. APA should include all of the state’s conservation easements in the Master Plan, integrate guidelines for their management and use into the SLMP, and devise appropriate management plans for easements on a landscape scale; and,

• Review all changes in land use or development on the state’s conservation easement lands. It is important that such lands not be subjected to an intensifying series of camp, boat launch, motorized use, road and other recreational facilities on a piecemeal basis which over time could overwhelm and eliminate the natural resource and ecosystem benefits of the easement;
• Insure that conservation easement lands serve as most important buffers for the Park’s core wild land resource on the Forest Preserve and consistent with the rights and interests of the underlying fee landowners;
• Require that any proposed material changes to state-held conservation easements uphold transparency as a vital government goal and involve prior and informed statewide public comment or hearing opportunities as a matter of basic civic and governmental duty. The basic rights for all New York citizens were denied in the case of the massive Champion Lands conservation easement conversion and marring the record for public transparency and inclusion necessary to insure long-term conservation gains.

The direct, indirect economic and ecological service values of our forested wild lands in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks should be better researched, evaluated and promoted. These real values, deriving from the Forest Preserve and state-held conservation easement contributions to watershed protection, water supply, environmental quality, flood attenuation, climate mitigation, wildlife habitats, recreational and cultural activities, and related employment are judged to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars or more annually, but barely enter public consciousness because of no coordinated effort to study and promote such information. The myriad benefits of wild nature and ecosystem services are poorly quantified, evaluated and integrated into decision-making. As a result, wild lands are severely undervalued by our society.

7. APA and DEC should, with objective university academic research support through SUNY, sponsor a thorough, peer-reviewed economic and ecological service valuation study and evaluation of the economic benefits made by all Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve lands and state-held conservation easements.

Our State Constitution demands that the Forest Preserve be “forever kept as wild forest lands.” The State Land Master Plan states that protection of natural resources is paramount. It is time for Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Adirondack Park Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to uphold similarly high standards for defining and evaluating health criteria for these wild lands, and to coordinate activities across the board to ensure that the principles and ethics underlying Article XIV are carried out by all agencies.

New York’s Forest Preserve and state-held conservation easement lands encompass rich, beautiful and complex wild land ecosystems which we are passing onto our children, yet we still know far too little about their health, economic and ecological benefits. APA and the DEC should be seeking national and international academic partners to help understand and apply the highest standards for wild land management. By doing so, the Adirondack Park Agency, working with Adirondack Wild and other park stakeholders, the DEC and all state agencies could truly lead in the critical and unique role of sustaining the Park’s wild land values at the park level, at the community level and as an essential national and international model. Advancing this model would be a result worthy of our state’s history and legacy as wilderness pioneers, and of the 40th anniversary of the State Land Master Plan.

For More Information or To Join Our Dialogue for the Wild, Contact:
Dave Gibson: dgibson@adirondackwild.org
Dan Plumley: dplumley@adirondackwild.org
Ken Rimany: krimany@adirondackwild.org

Posted 06/19/12

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