Protect the Adirondacks! and the Adirondack Mountain Club filed a lawsuit this week in state Supreme Court in Albany to require the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to adhere to state law and to classify a state-owned wilderness canoe route in the heart of the Adirondacks. PROTECT has also submitted a letter to Governor David Paterson expressing concern over a pattern of State policy decisions which could negatively impact the future of the Adirondack Park.

Read news release and statement
Read a related article in the Times-Union
Read our letter to the Governor
Read fact sheet and get involved!

We remember three giants of Adirondack conservation who have died this past year: Clarence Petty of  Coreys, Canton and Saranac Lake; Nellie Staves of Tupper Lake; and Joan Payne of Inlet.  All have left their indelible marks on the Adirondacks, and made a tremendous impact on the way we all think about the Adirondack Park as a global model of integrated conservation in wild and lived in landscapes.

PROTECT supports land exchange as amendment to
Article 14 of the NYS Constitution.

Protect the Adirondacks! encourages voters to vote YES for a “land exchange” proposal that will appear on their Election Day ballots on Tuesday, November 3, 2009.  This proposal would amend Article 14 of the Constitution to allow six acres of State Land to be used for the construction of a power line, in exchange for ten acres of private lands that would be added to the “forever wild,” publicly-owned Forest Preserve.

Thanks in part to a strong grassroots effort around the State, the APA recently voted by a 6-4 margin to classify most of Lows Lake and all of Bog Lake as part of the Five Ponds Wilderness Area.

Protect the Adirondacks hailed the Adirondack Park Agency’s action to classify nearly 8000 acres of Lows Lake – over 11,000 acres in all - as designated Wilderness. APA’s decision represents an historic step forward for remote wilderness lakes and Adirondack Park policy. This is an historic decision by the APA which will help to finally create one of the longest wilderness waterways in the northeastern United States .