Please help Protect the Adirondacks reach our $100,000 membership goal by the end of 2023. All contributions that we receive in November and December will be matched dollar for dollar until we reach $50,000 in donations. Your support is critical to our many successes.
Click here to make a contribution on our secure website.
We know you love and care about the Adirondack Park just like we do. We know that you want the next generation and the generations after that to enjoy the beautiful lakes, wild forests, extraordinary mountains, and small communities just as we all have experienced them. The Adirondack Park is an amazing place, but it has not been protected by accident, and it won’t be sustained as a wild world apart without a steady, guiding hand and with all of us helping.
At Protect the Adirondacks, we identify problems and research solutions. Our work is focused on advocacy, education, research, independent public oversight of state agencies and local governments that manage the Adirondack Park, and legal action. Through these programs, we implement our mission for the protection and stewardship of the public and private lands of the Adirondack Park and to build the health and diversity of its natural and human communities for the benefit of current and future generations.
We need you to help us to protect this great landscape, this grand experiment, and help make the Adirondack Park work at its best for all who enjoy this place now and for all who will come after us. All gifts made right now will be matched dollar for dollar up to $50,000.
In the last year, Protect the Adirondacks has been busy.
We just released a new special report 20% in 2023: An Assessment of the New York State 30 by 30 Act that assessed the level of protected lands and waters in New York State in 2023, the types of lands protected, what constitutes protected lands, and the amount of land that needs to be protected by 2030 to reach the goal of protecting 30% of New York State’s lands and waters as set out in the 30 by 30 Act.
This past summer marked the 26th successful season of the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program (ALAP), which is a partnership with the Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College, that monitors over lakes and ponds. The data from this program proved the case about road salt pollution from highway maintenance work. This led to state legislation and a plan to mitigate road salt pollution in the years ahead.
We’ve gone to court to defend wetlands and defend Wilderness, when state agencies refused to uphold the laws that protects these important resources. We’re also working with local organizations to help uphold public access and participation in permit review of major proposed developments.
We called for long-required and long-overdue studies for Carrying Capacity studies on the Saranac Chain of Lakes.
We wrapped up a historic lawsuit where the state’s highest court upheld the “Forever Wild” clause of the New York State Constitution, continuing a vital chain of decisions from the 1930s and 1990s that kept intact the vision of Forever Wild’s framers in the 1894 New York Constitutional Convention. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation was ordered to pay us $32,000.
We helped pass legislation to stop wildlife killing contests.
We called for the rewilding of Debar Pond, to preserve this beautiful lake as another Lake Lila and oppose its privatization. See helped secure First Passage of a new Article 14 Constitutional Amendment to fix ongoing problems at the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Winter Sports Complex.
We work with state agencies and stakeholders from the Adirondacks and Catskills in three different groups to reform Forest Preserve management. We think there are better programs to manage the high use of the most popular areas of our public Forest Preserve in ways that protect the natural resources and the wild experience of the hiker. We think that the Forest Preserve needs greater investment in maintaining and building sustainable trails, parking lots, and campsites.
We’ve stood up for wildlife like bobcats, coyotes, and wolves. We’ve successfully advocated for state funding to make critical investments in the Forest Preserve and Adirondack communities because we believe that economic development and environmental protection in Adirondack Park go hand-in-hand.
Thank you very much for your love and concern about the future of Adirondack Park. If we act today, this wonderful place will remain wild and beautiful for the next generation and the generation after that. Thank you for taking the time to join with Protect the Adirondacks.
