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2025 Winter Appeal

Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve is mindful that the National Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964 was inspired by our very own Article XIV of the NYS Constitution, dating to 1894, known as our “forever wild” clause. The person who inspired the author of the Wilderness Act, Howard Zahniser, to model NY’s Article XIV on a national scale was our organization’s founder, the 20th century’s renowned wilderness coalition leader, Paul Schaefer.

My biography of Paul Schaefer’s remarkable Adirondack advocacy, A Force for Nature: Paul Schaefer’s Adirondack Coalitions, is now available online and in bookstores.

While exploitation of the nation’s rare public wilderness is back in favor in Washington, D.C., here in New York the people get to determine if the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve are to be exploited. That is the time-honored wisdom of placing the Forest Preserve within the NYS Constitution. Indeed, the very close public vote in early November on an Article XIV land exchange at Mt. Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid again demonstrates public commitment for and oversight over forever wild.

Your year-end donation to Adirondack Wild will lend further confirmation of this commitment!

This month, State Supreme Court awarded us attorney fees and costs for defending ourselves against a $1,000,000 defamation lawsuit filed by a marina developer in 2024 simply for expressing ourselves about their large marina development on 80-acre Lower Fish Creek Pond. The Judge found their lawsuit illegal, intended to silence us and our free speech rights to comment before the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). This court decision in our favor sends a strong signal across the state that lawsuits against public participation in the Adirondacks (or anywhere else) will not be tolerated.

a beaver lodge in the middle of a small pond, surrounded by mountains in fall foliage

‘Double’ beaver lodge on Elk Lake, beavers getting ready for the winter season. Photo by Ken Rimany

As the beavers on Elk Lake fortify their lodge and food stores to withstand the long Adirondack winter, they remind us of the quiet, disciplined preparation essential for survival. Their resilience is drawn directly from the landscape itself – nature sustains them. Adirondack Wild, too, is preparing for the challenges and opportunities of the coming year, strengthening our advocacy, building our coalitions, and readying ourselves to defend “forever wild” wherever it is threatened. But unlike the beaver, we cannot draw our sustenance from the forest alone. Our ability to persist, to protect, and to prevail depends entirely on the generous contributions of members like you.

We now reach out to you for your strong participation in the work of Adirondack Wild, for example, to help us to:

  • place pressure on Governor Hochul and her DEC to conserve 36,000-acre Whitney Park in Long Lake.
  • advocate at APA for higher standards of design and review of Adirondack residential subdivisions whose impacts threaten the ecological integrity of neighboring Forest Preserve. Subdivided Adirondack lots now up for review near Lake George or close to Loon Lake should not sprawl across the landscape and resemble “Anyplace USA.”
  • ensure that new DEC trail construction and maintenance standards on the Forest Preserve for hiking, biking, horse riding, and snowmobiling comply with Article XIV’s constraints.
  • require that DEC study the capacity of Adirondack lakes and ponds surrounded by the Forest Preserve to withstand more and more recreational use and pressures. This necessary work has been postponed long enough.

Just as Paul Schaefer insisted and would remind us, our work remains dedicated to leaving a more protected Adirondack Park for our children, grandchildren, and for the youth of distant tomorrows.

We simply cannot continue to do this work without your help and generous financial support. Please return the enclosed donation card with your contribution, or visit our website, adirondackwild.org to make a secure gift to help us reach our year-end fundraising goal of $50,000. A generous donor will match your contribution dollar for dollar.

In advance, thank you for your consideration this fall and winter, and for your continued devotion to our wilderness watersheds, “forever kept as wild forest lands.”

In forever wild friendship,
David Gibson, Managing Partner
Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve