Lifelong Conservationist Receives
Adirondack Wilderness Award
Peter Roemer
Niskayuna, NY – Peter Roemer, born and raised in the Bronx, NY and currently a resident of Millbrook will receive the Howard Zahniser Adirondack Award on Friday May 5 from the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. The award is named for the author of the federal Wilderness Act of 1964, Howard Zahniser. Alice Zahniser and other members of her family will be attending the award ceremony. Her late husband Howard Zahniser was executive secretary of the Wilderness Society from 1945 until his death in 1964. The award will be presented at a dinner in Roemer's honor at the Glen Sander's Mansion in Scotia.
"As an active hunter, fisher and wilderness advocate, and through his words and actions Peter Roemer is the glue that binds the conservation with the wilderness movements" says Association Executive Director David Gibson. "We have come to know Peter Roemer's quiet but effective influence with others about the need to conserve our wildlife habitats and to protect the quiet wilderness solitude of rivers on which to canoe, lakes in which to fish and forests in which to hunt and enjoy wildlife. He has taken his lifelong appreciation of nature and grown into a leading volunteer for wildlife, sporting, conservation and land protection interests. In the process, he has earned great respect from the broadest possible spectrum of conservationists across New York and far beyond its borders."
Association President Peter Brinkley says, "Peter Roemer has always placed wilderness values and the ecological integrity of the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve, and other special places on the globe, ahead of consumptive and parochial interests. Even more than this, Peter Roemer has cultivated and taught others about the ethical obligations that human beings have towards the land, towards our wildlife and our natural resources. We are immensely proud to present the Howard Zahniser Adirondack Award to this man who conveys such joy in his lifelong work to appreciate, utilize and protect the natural world."
The recipient grew up near Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, NY and later became the owner of Peter Roemer Florist, a family floral and landscaping business dating to 1865 that he and his wife Elsie operated for 40 years. During his youth, Roemer explored Van Cortland Park and areas near the Bronx River and grew to know the woods, waters and wildlife of that region. Introduced to the Adirondack region in 1936, Roemer has been returning there every year since to hunt and fish. His Adirondack camp is located in the town of Johnsburg, Warren County.
The conservation of forests and wildlife became Roemer's passionate interest after he graduated from Purdue University in 1946. In 1970, Peter Roemer joined the Camp Fire Club in Chappaqua, NY and became Chair of its Conservation Committee. From that position, Peter advocated strongly for the integrity of the "forever wild" clause of the New York State Constitution that protects the publicly-owned Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve. From that position, Peter was invited to the councils of the NYS Conservation Council, an influential federation of all hunting and fishing clubs in the State. In 1976, Peter became a charter member of the Camp Fire Conservation Fund which provides grants for wildlife conservation across the nation. He served as its President from 1984-86.
In 1982, Roemer earned the Camp Fire Club of America Presidential Citation and its John E. Hammett Memorial Award. In 1990, Peter earned the Conservationist of the Year from the NYS Conservation Council and the New York Power Authority. In 1983 Roemer was elected president of the American Wildlife Research Foundation, a position he held for thirteen years. In 2002, Peter was honored for his work with the NYS Forest Preserve Advisory Committee. In 2005, the Camp Fire Club of America voted to give him its Medal of Honor, one of only 25 recipients of this honor in the Club's 120 year history.
Roemer also joined the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks in 1986 and joined its Board of Trustees in 1987. He chaired the Association's Conservation Committee and later became Association President in 1994 and served through 1996. He remains an Honorary Trustee today.
The Howard Zahniser Adirondack Award is presented annually by the Association
for the Protection of the Adirondacks to a person who embodies the Wilderness vision, sentiments and actions of Howard Zahniser. The federal Wilderness bill that he authored went through 66 drafts and was signed into law by President Johnson in 1964. In his work, Zahniser was greatly inspired by the "Forever Wild" clause of the New York State Constitution. Today, the Wilderness Act protects 107 million acres in the United States as Wilderness by law. That figure does not include lands of the three million acre New York State Forest Preserve in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks protected by the NYS Constitution.
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to employ public education, citizen action, public and private partnerships and strong advocacy to protect, enhance, and sustain the wild character, ecological integrity, and mutual well-being of the natural and human communities of the Adirondack region. The Association's Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna serves as an Adirondack research library and learning center.