Updated policies address climate change, accessibility and more across forest preserve
By Gwendolyn Craig
Climate change mitigation, carrying capacity details, visitor use management and more were added to the policy plan covering state lands in the Adirondack Park on Thursday.
Ten of the 11 Adirondack Park Agency board members voted to adopt the amendments to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, with Rush Holt Jr. abstaining.
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The amendments were first proposed a year ago and garnered nearly 3,000 comments. The last time the master plan was amended was in 2019.
Accessibility
The APA, which oversees long-range planning in the 6-million-acre mix of public and private lands, dropped its most controversial proposal to exclude some powered devices for people with mobility disabilities from the definition of motor vehicles.
Environmental groups in particular feared the move would open the door for ATVs, golf carts and the like to wilderness areas. The very core of wilderness in the Adirondack Park is an absence of motor vehicles.
About one-third of the comments the agency received were critical of that proposal. Records show the agency and environmental groups continue to disagree on the interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it relates to the master plan.
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Megan Phillips, deputy director for planning at the APA, described the public’s response to the amendments as “tremendous” and noted other accessibility issues remained in the master plan updates. Unit management plans, which are made for specific regions throughout the park, will now be required to inventory opportunities for people with disabilities and describe any new management actions for increasing accessibility.
Meanwhile, the Department of Environmental Conservation is working on a statewide policy for other-power-driven-mobility devices. The APA, Phillips said, is partnering with the department on how that would pertain to forest preserve lands.
An amendments summary
The agency expounded on carrying capacity, a way to measure how much of something an environment can withstand before there are negative impacts. In the Adirondacks, carrying capacity is most often used to describe the number of people a hiking trail can withstand before seeing degradation, or the number of boats a lake can accommodate.
The amendments also include visitor use management. This is a framework used at the federal level for monitoring sites and adaptively managing them to protect natural resources.
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Climate change mitigation, which had never before been a specific category in the master plan, will now be a required part of unit management planning.
The master plan, including the amendments, is on the APA’s website at: https://apa.ny.gov/meeting/2025/09/files/state-lands/APSLMPProposedFinalRedline202425.pdf.
Outstanding issues
New board member Holt characterized the amendments as focused on the minutiae.
“It seems to me the review was taking the existing state land master plan to look at detailed paragraphs,” he said, “without asking the fundamental question of, ‘Is the APA moving forward?’”
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He also questioned whether the agency had done a comprehensive review of what it has promised in the master plan and other management plans and what has been completed.
Phillips said the master plan was a “living document” and that the agency was asking those questions through its work.
Jerry Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, also expressed frustration that the agency backed down from its accessibility proposal. Delaney had been a staunch proponent of the addition of other-power-driven mobility devices to the master plan.
Ron Konowitz, president of the Adirondack Backcountry Skiers and the first person to ski all 46 High Peaks, has appeared at nearly every agency meeting advocating for backcountry ski trail management. He addressed board members during the public comment periods at the start and end of the meeting, noting that it has been 15 years and there is still no policy for ski touring in wilderness and wild forest.
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