The Adirondack Park: From Contested Landscape to Partnership Landscape

In 1992, the centennial year of the 6 million acre Adirondack Park that includes a bit more than 3 million acres of privately owned land and almost 3 million acres of Constitutiionally protected forest preserve the Park was called "a park in the painful process of becoming a park". One of Phil Terrie's Adirondack books is entitled "Contested Landscape". These characterizations reflect the complexity of managing for preservation and public enjoyment purposes a diverse and vast landscape, part populated, part wilderness and part managed forest.

Drawing from four decades of experience with the Adirondack Park that included advocacy through the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club and membership on the Board of the former Association for the Protection of the Adirondack Park, legislative drafting of Adirondack legislation and laws at the NYS Legislature, three productive years in the policy office for the NYS Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, initiating the twinning between the Adirondack Park and the Italian Abruzzo Park, counsel on the Committee for the Adirondack Park Centennial, my presentation will describe and analyze a transformation that has occured in the last decade from a contested landscape to an increasingly productive partnership landscape. Some of the reasons for this transformation include an annual one day gathering in the Park to identify a Common Ground agenda that has general acceptance came from within the Park and other forces from partnership came from State Government, engagement of metropolitan economic development entities outside the Park and of institutions of higher education both in and outside of the Park and involvement with international partnership landscapes.

The Adirondack Park continues to face challenges but this presentation will reveal how partnership and positive attitute can create the opportunity for mutual benefit.

By Paul M. Bray