Adirondack Wilderness Advocates push for protected areas

Boreas Ponds Tract and beyond: How a small group influences state conservation efforts

This is part of a series from the January/February 2025 issue of the magazine, “Green groups at a turning point: Environmental watchdogs change guard.”

A newer group, Adirondack Wilderness Advocates, sprang up around the classification of the Boreas Ponds Tract. It favors expansion of wilderness and wilderness-like areas throughout the park, which are the most protected and without motorized vehicle use.

Pete Nelson, co-founder, described it as ordinary people working without paid staff or lobbyists and with a bank account so small, it does not need to file a public tax form.

But the group has made its mark among the state’s decision makers. It has had a seat at the table of a state committee investigating visitor use of the High Peaks and it has served on a forest preserve trail working group.

“We feel that we are taken as seriously as we are because of our grassroots nature, and the fact that we know what we’re focused on,” Nelson said. “That allows us to be very straight with what we do. … It’s not the same kind of level of politics that go with more organizations that are more complex with staff, a board and more presence in Albany.”

Embracing a watchdog approach, it documented non-conforming structures the state has failed to remove on forest preserve. Co-founder Bill Ingersoll has spotted DEC staff illegally using ATVs in a wilderness area, which led to a reprimand from the APA.

The group’s focus is on educating the public about visitor use management and the value of remoteness.

— By Gwendolyn Craig

Top photo: Amy and Pete Nelson in front of icicles colored with tannin from overhanging hemlocks. Photo by Tim Rowland