2023 Awards

Conservationists honored at Adirondack Wild’s annual meeting

Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve conveyed its annual awards to two deserving Adirondack champions on Friday, October 6, 2023, at the Adirondack Interpretive Center, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Newcomb.

man wearing a suit and tie, holding a framed award, and smiling — Steve Englebright

2023 Paul Schaefer Wilderness Award

Presented to
Steve Englebright

Since 1992 Steve Englebright has been the key to improving the health of our environment. Elected to the State Assembly, he rose to chair its Environmental Conservation Committee where his tact, wisdom and tenacious leadership repeatedly overcame opposition from powerful, polluting interests, leaving every New Yorker with a better quality of life. A Democrat, Steve was re-elected eleven times by his Republican constituents on Long Island, proof that protecting our environment is not a partisan act. His accomplishments include energetic defense of Article XIV, “forever wild,” protection of the Long Island Pine Barrens and the Long Island aquifer, long sought strengthening of the Freshwater Wetlands Act, and passing the groundbreaking Climate Act of 2019. As a trained geologist, Steve thinks and plans for the long-term and for future generations, just as our founder did. Today, Paul Schaefer would applaud because in Steve Englebright he would see one of the state’s greatest lawmakers and statesmen.

five adults standing in a line, with the woman in hte middle holding a framed award and smiling — Northeast Wilderness Trust, L-R, Jon Leibowitz, Executive Director; Caitlin Mather, Land Protection Manager; Hannah Epstein, Stewardship Director; Janelle Jones, New York Land Steward; and Bob Linck, Conservation Director.

2023 Wild Stewardship Award

Presented to
Northeast Wilderness Trust

For two decades, the team of the Northeast Wilderness Trust has quietly gone about acquiring and connecting tracts of wilderness so that they are not isolated, but connected to benefit wildlife migration, critical habitats, and opportunities for human beings to experience our interdependence with the wild community. N.E.W.T’s exemplary work includes acquisition of land parcels connecting Lake Champlain with the High Peaks Wilderness, the Split Rock Wildway; Eagle Mountain connecting Lake Champlain valley with the Jay Mountain Wilderness; and most recently at Bear Pond preserve which will re-wild a private inholding and eventually become a seamless part of the Five Ponds Wilderness. These are all significant accomplishments for wildness, accomplishments completely aligned with Adirondack Wild’s own vision for an interconnected, unfragmented, intact network of protected public and private wildlands across the entire Adirondack Park. We owe the Northeast Wilderness Trust recognition for quietly but effectively pursuing that same vision.