Three Cheers for the
Land Savers!
Hurray for the Open Space Institute and all the other good folks
who are helping to secure the future of the Adirondacks. The big
news in this issue is that nearly 10 years of on-and-off negotiations
have finally paid off for Joe Martens, president of this private,
non-profit land trust.
If the deal goes through as expected, the so-called Tahawus Tract
will be preserved. No condos, no trophy homes, no Wilderness Estates
subdivisions will ever degrade these 9,000-plus acres that constitute
the southern gateway to the High Peaks. The trails that run through
here to the high country will always traverse wild terrain “unimproved”
by electric lines, lights, roads, vacation homes, septic tanks,
motors, deer-chasing dogs and predatory house cats. Henderson Lake
and the Preston Ponds will be accessible to hikers, paddlers and
campers. A major mountain (Mount Adams) will be added to the Forest
Preserve.
More good news. This acquisition, like most others in recent times,
tends to benefit just about everyone. Part of the Tahawus Tract
will remain in private forestry use via a conservation easement,
thus preserving jobs. The local government will enjoy a boost in
property taxes. A historic district will be created, preserving
a mining ghost town and thereby stimulating tourism.
In this way, the Park is slowly but surely being pieced back together.
An-other example: Domtar Industries, a Canadian paper company, owns
105,000 forested acres in the northeast corner of the Adirondacks.
For a decade Domtar has wanted to sell conservation easements to
the state, thus (for a price) protecting these lands against fragmentation.
Our last issue reported that the Adirondack Nature Conservancy,
one of the great Adirondack land savers of recent decades, is trying
to broker a deal between Domtar and the state. Helping the process
along is $5 million budgeted for this purpose by the Bush administration,
thanks to the urging of New York’s Premier Land Saver, Gov.
George Pataki.
On Page 43 of this issue we report on another emerging opportunity
presented by another paper company. Hancock Timber is putting 94,000
acres in the western Adirondacks up for bid. If the land savers
play it right, the parcel could be forever preserved via easements,
leaving another piece of the Adirondack jigsaw puzzle intact for
all time. As for the oft-heard local objection to such acquisitions—that
they would undermine the tradition of leasing hunting camps on the
Park’s timber lands—the solution seems simple enough.
When conservation easements are purchased, the hunting clubs could
be given life tenancy if necessary. The overriding goal, to avoid
the fragmentation of open space and wildlife habitat, can still
be achieved.
The Lake George Land Conservancy, another notable land saver, has
more good news to report. Having saved some of the lake’s
most significant undeveloped shoreline, it has moved to preserve
about 2,000 acres of pristine hillside above Bolton Landing, an
area imminently threatened by the kind of cancerous upland development
that poses a major threat throughout the Park. LGLC has just purchased
more than half this tract and expects to complete the deal in September.
There’s much more to be done, of course, if the Adirondack
Park we bequeath to our great-grandchildren is to be as wild and
beautiful at the end of this century as it is today. Some thousand
new houses are being built every year in the Park, and development
pressures will only increase. Decisive action is needed now on many
fronts.
Ten years ago, for example, the elderly owner of Follensby Pond,
a 3-mile-long wilderness lake connecting with the Raquette River,
wanted to sell his 15,000-acre paradise to the state. Then, suddenly,
he withdrew from the negotiations. A follow-up is long overdue.
What about the spectacular scenic vistas, many involving private
land, as seen by “windshield tourists” from the Park’s
roads? And the 500,000-acre Great Oswegatchie Canoe Wilderness proposed
by conservationists for the northwest Adirondacks? Is anybody systematically
talking with the 23 private owners there about selling their lands
or putting protective easements on them?
Great things are happening all right, thanks to our heroic land
savers. But still more needs doing, and time is of the essence.
Richard Beamish, Publisher
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