AWA Selects New Leader
At its spring 2021 quarterly meeting, which was held (remotely) in April, the Adirondack Wilderness Advocates board of directors held its first officer elections since incorporating as a 501(c)(3) organization…
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What to Watch in the AMR’s “Permitting Pilot”
Adirondack websites and social media are abuzz with news of a new pilot permit program that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Adirondack Mountain Reserve (AMR)…
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Expertise and Adaptive Management for the High Peaks
AWA’s first order of business in serving on the High Peaks Advisory Group (HPAG) was to ensure that protection of the Wilderness was a paramount and inviolate principle. That was…
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Leading with Principles
Friday, March 5, 2021 Dear AWA Supporter: Earlier this afternoon, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released the long-awaited Final Report from the High Peaks Strategic Planning…
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A Very Brief History of the High Peaks Wilderness
The human history of the Adirondack High Peaks region is such a voluminous subject matter that it could easily fill an entire book. These mountains have been so scrutinized over…
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Old Roads on Old Maps
We are on the south side of the stream, and there is no sign of the old logging road. All around us are open hardwoods: mature maples and birches arching…
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Forty-Six: On the Occasion of the 2021 Presidential Inauguration
We started Adirondack Wilderness Advocates in 2016, a year with implications in the political history of this country. We weren’t anything close to a national movement then, nor do we…
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UPDATE: Development Continues on AWA’s Visitor Use Management App
Earlier this year, I wrote about a proof of concept app we had started working on to produce better data about visitor activity in the Adirondack Park. The concept was…
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River of No Return
Over Lexie’s curled form, over the down sleeping bag and the spare coat that has kept us warm through the night, out of the tent and across the small campsite…
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Wilderness Drop Zones: A Poor Management Practice
Maintaining wilderness facilities such as trails, footbridges, and lean-tos is an important responsibility for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency in charge of managing the forever-wild Adirondack…
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When the Earth Was Wilderness
I wrote my first book in the second grade. Seriously. It was written and drawn in pencil, and it was colored in crayon. But it had thirty-two pages and a cover,…
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Protecting the Wilderness with Positive Reinforcement
The busy season in the Adirondacks is winding down, but with a bang. The Coronavirus pandemic, which depressed visitation for the first part of the summer, has clearly caused a…
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