A second series of public meetings is planned for the Great South Woods initiative, to gather public input on a regional strategy to diversify and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities and improve community connectivity.
The area designated the “Great South Woods” by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) encompasses more than two million acres in the southern Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.
The iconic sugar maple, one of the most economically and ecologically important trees in the eastern United States and Canada, shows signs of being in decline, according to research results published today (Oct. 21, 2015) in the journal Ecosphere.
Scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) analyzed growth rings from hundreds of trees in the Adirondacks and found a decline in the growth rate began for a majority of sugar maple trees after 1970. The reasons for the decline are unclear. » Continue Reading.
There has been a long-held belief about Newcomb among many Adirondackers visitors and residents alike – there’s nothing there. I’ve heard this about Newcomb on and off for thirty years. It’s Nonsense!
Sure, I don’t deny that the Newcomb area could benefit from more places to dine and stay the night. But I can’t think of any place better equipped to appeal to one class of tourist the Adirondack region has so far mostly ignored: ecotourism. » Continue Reading.
A Northern Forest Festival will take place May 23rd from 9 am to 4 pm. The festival, held at the Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) at SUNY-ESF’s Newcomb Campus, is free and open to the public. The festival includes activities and demonstrations for all ages, including the 4th Annual Loon Race, the only race of rubber loons in the world.
The festival takes the place of Loons and Logs Day. “We wanted to create a more festive and fair-like atmosphere while keeping the focus on the natural and cultural history of the Adirondacks and Northern Forest region through hands-on, nature-based activities and programming,” program coordinator for ESF’s Northern Forest Institute Paul Hai said in an announcement to the press. The festival includes bird banding demonstrations, guided nature walks along the AIC trails, outdoor nature stations for kids, vintage guideboat tours of Rich Lake exploring its human and natural history, and vendors from local recreation and hospitality businesses. » Continue Reading.
SUNY ESF, through two of its regional campuses, has joined a group of leading biological field stations in a network devoted to bridging the gap between scientific inquiry on one side and arts and humanities on the other.
The college’s Newcomb Campus and the Cranberry Lake Biological Station, both in the Adirondacks, are members of Ecological Reflections, a network that brings together scientists, writers and artists to explore the connection between science and the humanities. The network grew out of a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research program. » Continue Reading.
It is not a tourism campaign, or a new branding effort, or a marketing scheme.
It is not the southern portion of St. Lawrence County portrayed by author Peter O’Shea. Nor is it somewhere deep in the Smoky Mountains, or in the longleaf pine forests of Florida and Georgia.
It is the first step of a new effort to take a fresh look at recreation in the Adirondack Park.
What we are calling the Great South Woods is over two million acres – about one-third of the entire Adirondack Park – south of Routes 28 and 28N, west of the Northway (I-87) and Route 9, and north and east of the Blue Line. » Continue Reading.
An article in the June 21, 1915, Syracuse Post-Standard was the first anyone in our family had heard of the role our property on Indian Point played in the evolution of early forestry education in the United States.
The August Forest Camp was a miniature village of 9×9 tents where approximately twelve boys and men lived while participating in morning instruction and afternoon fieldwork. The month long program included elementary forestry, zoology, botany and fungi courses taught by prominent U. S. pioneers of forestry science. An old Adirondack guide also taught a week of Woodcraft “such as a man should know who wishes to spend any length of time in the woods”. » Continue Reading.
An effort latter this month hopes to gather public input about how to diversify and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities in the what organizers are calling the “Great South Woods” – a more than 2 million-acre area of public and private lands in the southern Adirondack Park that includes parts of Oneida, Herkimer, Hamilton, Fulton, Saratoga, Warren, and Essex Counties.
The driving forces behind this new initiative have been Bill Farber, Chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). » Continue Reading.
Scientists are not the only ones working in the forest this summer at the Newcomb Campus of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). Artist Frances Gaffney, who frequently uses the Adirondacks as a backdrop and source of inspiration, is the first artist in residence at the Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC), the site of public outreach at the Newcomb Campus. She will work out of the AIC through August, creating pieces inspired by the local landscape and leading public workshops and demonstrations.
Gaffney has recently begun a series of paintings titled “Feeling is the Prayer”. As detailed in her artist statement, these paintings reflect the possibility that “our intentions are a form of prayer and that prayer succeeds only by experiencing the intent of the prayer as if it has already occurred.” She will work on this series during her residency at the AIC. » Continue Reading.
Plans to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of The National Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964 are moving ahead. A steering committee has been established and a new logo has been designed that will be used to help promote a variety of commemorative activities being planned later this year at college campuses and other venues across New York State this year.
The Wilderness Act’s chief author, Howard Zahniser, took his inspiration from New York’s “forever wild” constitutional protection of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve. That constitutional protection also has its 120th anniversary this year (1894-2014). Zahniser wrote that New York State set the example for the national Wilderness movement. » Continue Reading.
Brian Houseal, Executive Director of the Adirondack Council from 2002 to 2012, has been named Director of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb.
The appointment was announced Friday in an e-mail by Bruce C. Bongarten, SUNY-ESF’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Houseal’s appointment is expected to begin on January 2, 2014. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Park Agency is weighing seven options for the classification of the 17,320-acre Essex Chain Tract. Perhaps they should consider an eighth.
Three college students have studied the various issues pertaining to classification and come up with their own recommendation: designate the tract Wild Forest with special restrictions.
The students—Azaria Bower, Kayla Bartheleme, and Erin Ulcickas—collaborated on the project this fall during their semester at the Newcomb campus of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry. » Continue Reading.
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Northern Forest Institute is inviting submissions for its third annual symposium of interdisciplinary scholarship in land use and ethics to be held in Newcomb June 6 – 8, 2014.
Submissions from a range of disciplines and professional fields are encouraged. Topics include a variety of approaches to land use, the moral implications of these approaches, and their impacts on social and environmental justice. See the 2013 program on their website. Submission deadline is December 16, 2013. More information can be found on their website.
The Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) in will sponsor its second Guide Boat Regatta Sept. 7. People who own one of the classic Adirondack boats, along with those who want to learn more about them, are invited to the event.
One of the centerpieces for the day will be “Beaver,” a guide boat that was in use during the property’s days as a Great Camp. The Beaver returned to Newcomb this summer after an absence of more than 70 years.
Last year, some 40 people gathered at the center with their guide boats for the first regatta, a day of programming about the craft’s historic role in Adirondack history, and most importantly, a day of rowing on Rich Lake. » Continue Reading.
A gleaming wooden Adirondack guide boat, made from pine and cherry, and sporting original cane seats and graceful oars along with a history that dates to Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, is again gliding through the waters of the Central Adirondacks where it was crafted at the turn of the 20th century.
The boat, still bearing the original Beaver nameplate that marked it as part of the fleet at Arbutus Great Camp, is back at work at the Adirondack Interpretive Center poised to serve as the flagship of a small fleet of guide boats that will be used for educational purposes by the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), which owns the interpretive center. The program will give members of the public a rare opportunity to see, touch and ride in an authentic guide boat. The Beaver returned to Newcomb this summer after an absence of more than 70 years. » Continue Reading.
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