The reds, yellows, and oranges jump out at me. They are unappealing blotches on a fruit-salad map of speckled green. The Adirondack Park is mostly green and yet undeniably industrial and civilized.

It feels impossible to find a solution to a massive problem: how humans and nature can live together harmoniously. The Adirondack Park, while flawed in its execution and demonstrably imperfect, represents a valiant attempt at balancing the needs of humans and nature.

Robert Glennon, in his reflection on the APA focuses on perceived negatives – the times when the APA failed to protect nature (Glennon). Alternatively, these may be moments for optimism – moments when the needs and wishes of the people of the park, and other outside stakeholders, were heard. While I personally believe that the park should include more protected land, and protection should be more rigorously supported, I recognize that conservation only works with the support of the general public. The APA’s regulations mean nothing if people are unwilling to actually abide by them. As a public agency, the APA is ultimately (albeit indirectly) responsible to voters; as a result, it must balance its conservation efforts with maintaining some support in the Adirondack and statewide community.

Adirondack conservation efforts began over a century after settlement began and during a period of intense desire for use of Adirondack lands (Terrie). As a result, it quickly became impossible for the Adirondack Park to be a continuous tract of unbroken wilderness (Terrie). Nonetheless, the fruit-salad map is mostly green. Significant portions of the park are protected – through easements, state landholding, private hunting clubs not developing for their own use, various levels of state wilderness, and other arrangements. For all of its failures the APA did and does protect the Adirondacks.

Yes, far more houses were (and are) built than would be ideal for the environment (Glennon). Yes, highways, tourist attractions, downtown areas, increased trail use, prisons, and manufacturing facilities negatively impact ecosystems. And yet – the park is mostly green. It still contains some of the largest tracts of unbroken forest left in the world. Its lands (although mostly privately held) are far more protected than the vast majority of other (even theoretically-protected) lands in the United States (Terrie).

And 130,000 people live in the Adirondacks year-round. And there are 200,000 seasonal residents. And the Park hosts 12.4 million visitors every year (Adirondack Council). The Adirondack Park is mostly green, has some of the healthiest and largest forest ecosystems in the world, and supports a huge human population. A human population, many of whom view the Adirondacks and leave with an increased sense of purpose to protect other ecosystems and the planet as a whole.

I pause for a moment in class. When we talk about the Adirondacks, I hone in on the negatives. The traffic, the overused trails, the kitschy storefronts, the condos along once-pristine lakes. I fail to ponder what all of that green really represents.

At least some of that green represents trees (an unfathomable number of them) and ecosystems miles from the nearest tree or railroad. Places where humans almost never are. Forests either at or near (depending on how long ago they were logged – so much prime wilderness was logged) their climax successional stage. Flourishing ecosystems that exist hardly anywhere else in the world.

The Adirondack Park is imperfect. In so many ways, it fails both its people and its ecosystems. But in so many ways, in attempting to balance the two, it is an unprecedented success – a success story unlike that of any other region in the world.

It’s a cause for optimism. Or at least a cause to avoid the doomsday depression rational environmental thinking usually brings.

Works Cited

“About the Adirondack Park.” Adirondack Council, 2021, www.adirondackcouncil.org/page/the-adirondack-park-19.html. Accessed 11 Nov. 2021.

Glennon, Robert. “A Land Not Saved.” The Great Experiment in Conservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park, by William F. Porter et al., Syracuse, Syracuse UP, 2009, pp. 265-81.

Terrie, Philip G. Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks. 2nd ed., Blue Mountain Lake, Adirondack Museum, 2008.