Memorial items and family photo inside of a guide boat

Keeping forests as forests: Clarence Petty’s vision

Keeping forests as forests: Clarence Petty’s vision Clarence Petty (1905-2009) grew up in the Adirondacks and eventually had a career with the state conservation department. His biography by Chris Angus, The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey of Clarence Petty. (Syracuse University Press, 2002) is still available.  After a few years with the new APA, upon retirement in 1974…

A group of people gathered for a meeting at the Adirondack Park Agency

Did the APA Learn a Lesson?

Did the APA Learn a Lesson? Did the APA learn a lesson in May? Apparently so, though only one person around the APA’s table would say so in public.  That admission came from the non-voting representative of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, Jerry Delaney. “We’ve had a lesson in how important the people…

View of mountains behind Lake George

APA failure to hold public hearings has consequences

APA failure to hold public hearings has consequences Last April, Adirondack organizations wrote to the Adirondack Park Agency asking APA to rediscover their discretionary power to hold adjudicatory public hearings on particularly complex, controversial Adirondack land use projects. No response to our joint letter has been forthcoming from the APA. However, a rather resounding response…

Group leader speaking to hikers in front of a snow-covered cabin in the woods

The Heart of the Adirondacks

The Heart of the Adirondacks Newcomb is in the heart of the Adirondack Park, and Newcomb’s Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry is the beating heart of Park ecological science. AIC operates one of the longest, if not the longest, uninterrupted study of the interactions of forest…

Governor Nelson Rockefeller signing the APA Act, 1973,

APA Act at 50 – Interdependence, not Balance

APA Act at 50 – Interdependence, not Balance Well, it’s happened again. Another state budget is proposed by the Executive wherein the Adirondack Park Agency’s job is mischaracterized by this Governor’s (and former governors’) budget divisions as working “to achieve a balance between strong environmental protection and sustainable economic development opportunities for the residents of…