In Nepal, the region I grew up in was very similar to the Adirondack region: a pristine land with a thriving forest ecosystem. Many years back, as I watched out from my dorm, I saw people swirl around the roaring asphalt mixers in the hope of a road that would connect their homes it the peaks to the base of the Shivapuri Hill. Their faces were glowing with happiness and excitement; firstly, because the people living in these rural hills would not have to walk to the base to get their needs, secondly, because road construction happens once in about five years, during the time of elections. Little did we know that these roads would be a reason for mass deforestation in five years.

The introduction of railroads in 1871(1) brought events that loggers in the Adirondack region could one have never thought of- a mechanized transportation system that would eliminate the tiresome task of walking across countries. Over time, as the demand for charcoal woods, timber, and other hardwoods increased, rivers could not keep these heavy woods afloat. However, the railroads removed this barrier and further gave loggers a solid incentive to slash entire forests and sell it to the hungry industries.

In 1885 After the Forest Preserve Law to keep the Adirondack “forever wild” was implemented, the New York state government bought lands to preserve it (2). Loggers were contended to clear out the forests before the government took over the land. In the spring of 1903, the sparks from a train’s engine caught twigs and branches and caused disastrous forest fires with nearly 300,000 acres burnt (2).

Applying salt on the roads is a widely-used method for clearing snow in the Adirondack region. For instance, the Olympic organizing team decided to put six times more salt than the years before for the thousands of people who would visit the area to watch the Olympics (3). Much to their surprise, there was no snowfall that year, and I can only imagine how badly the salt would have impacted the minerals in the soil of the nearby sites.

In his book Contested Terrain, Terrie writes about his new observation of the park as “just another American place where people go about the daily business of working, raising children, and engaging the national economy.” (4) Once a home for the lush forests and the gleaming lakes, the pristine forest was now flooded with newcomers. Businessperson took new roads as an opportunity to clear land, bring tourists to maximize profits, while the wildlife was indignantly screaming for conservation.

We often tend to forget that all development does not necessarily lead to progress. Development in infrastructures such as roads might have been beneficial for people who generated huge revenues, but the forest condition regressed over many years. The key to preserving a renewable resource like forests is to have the rate of growth greater than the rate of human consumption, but as of then, this was not the case. Today, my town in Nepal is home to scanty forests. Succession is not the answer to deforestation because it would take a few hundred years for these regions to welcome the dense forest. Therefore, it is urgent to recognize that what we consider signs of development can harm the environment.

Citations

1. Pulling, Jordan, “Transportation and Tourism in the Adirondack Park: How the historical development of transportation and tourism shaped the culture of the Adirondacks” (2014). Summer Research Fellowships. 3. https://digitalworks.union.edu/summerfellowships/3
2. North Country National Scenic Trail. “Adirondacks: Lumber Industry and Forest Conservation (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/articles/adirondacks-lumber-industry-forest-conservation.htm.
3. Rivard, Ry. “Curbing New York’s 40-Year Road Salt Addiction.” Adirondack Explorer, 21 Dec. 2020, https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/curbing-new-yorks-40-year-road-salt-addiction.
4. Schneider, Paul. The Adirondacks: A History of America’s First Wilderness. H. Holt and Co., 1998.