For Immediate Release
August 20, 2025
Contact: David Gibson, 518-469-4081
or Ken Rimany, [email protected]
Adirondack Wild Announces 2025 Awards
Old Forge, NY – 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 (viewarts.org) in Old Forge. The public is warmly invited. An Annual Meeting agenda and registration information can be found at www.adirondackwild.org/events.
Champion of the Forest Preserve: This year’s Champion of the Forest Preserve goes to Chad Dawson whose wilderness recreation research has guided Adirondack Forest Preserve stewardship for decades. As recreational pressures on the Preserve grew, so did Chad Dawson’s recreational surveys, carrying capacity assessments, and visitor use management studies. His premise is that the Forest Preserve degrades if there is inadequate information, analysis, planning, and management steps taken to guide our recreational impulses in ways protective of the wilderness. Chad’s work has critically informed wildland protection decisions of resource professionals, citizen advocates, and the world. Chad is 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, former Member of the Adirondack Park Agency, Managing Editor of the International Journal of Wilderness and co-editor of Wilderness Management: Stewardship and Protection of Resources and Values celebrating its 5th Edition in 2025.
Wild Stewardship Award: This year’s award goes to Park ecologist, Sunita Halasz. Sunita is a former natural resource analyst with the Adirondack Park Agency and lately the Climate Strategy Advisor for the Adirondack Research Consortium and coordinator of the Adirondack Climate Outreach and Resilience Network, or ACORN. Sunita has turned ACORN into the first coordinated, Park-wide effort to identify common concerns and prioritize community-driven, proactive solutions in response to a changed Adirondack climate. Sunita’s energetic organizing has resulted in over a dozen community workshops which have planted seeds to grow conversations, increase connections and social cohesion, and inspire fresh climate leadership around the Adirondack Park. Thanks to Sunita and her team, ACORN has identified shared projects and climate response and resilience funding opportunities across twelve Adirondack counties. In her spare time, Sunita mentors future generations of climate leaders. After listening to young neighbors despair over the decline of melting glaciers, Sunita organized a club in Saranac Lake focused on climate change action. Now, a group of mostly home-schooled students are working on local projects to make their world healthier. In recent days, the Adirondack Council has recognized her many skills and hired Sunita to be their Clean Water Community Advocate.
Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award: In Aaron Mair, we see the same spirit of activism which inhabited wilderness leader Paul Schaefer (1908-1996). Aaron’s strong, courageous voice for environmental justice, wilderness protection, and recruitment of young people of color to enter environmental fields are heard here in New York and across the country and the world. After 15 years of working for environmental justice at the grassroots level with the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Aaron became the first African Amereican board president of the national Sierra Club. For his work, Aaron’s professional papers have been accepted by the Library of Congress to serve as a foundation for its environmental justice library. Aaron’s recruitment of leaders of color in Albany and New York City has helped to address and to fund climate change research in Adirondack lakes, protect wilderness, and prepare urban youth for science and environmental careers right here in the central Adirondacks under the banner of the Timbuctoo Climate and Careers Institute. Thanks to Aaron, people of all colors and backgrounds know that this is their Adirondack Park, too, and that they have an equal stake in its future.
Please join Adirondack Wild to celebrate these deserving honorees and to learn more about Wilderness Management: Stewardship of Resources and Values during Adirondack Wild’s annual meeting at View Arts in Old Forge. The meeting runs from 11 AM to 3:30 PM and is free and open to the public. Please bring your own lunches. Light refreshments will be available.
Advance Registration is appreciated: Please Email to: [email protected], or visit our website, adirondackwild.org/events.
Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve is a not for profit, membership organization devoted to the protection and stewardship of wilderness and other wild lands through advocacy and education. The organization protects wild lands from threats, holds officials accountable and proposes policy reforms. More on the web at adirondackwild.org.