ADIRONDACK GREEN
The Struggle to Save America’s Greatest Park
New York’s Adirondack Park is bigger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and Great Smokies National Parks combined. Most of it is privately owned. It also might be the world’s best protected wilderness, even though 85 million people live within a day’s drive and 130,000 people live inside park boundaries. How did that happen?
This site shares stories from the people who waged a 50-year struggle to protect their Adirondacks. Environmental leaders fought to protect wild land. Landowners fought to protect the rights of private property. Public officials struggled to keep up with change and prevent public anger from exploding. Everyone was ready to shed blood, sweat and tears for the places they loved.
Adirondack Green is the online presentation of a project 25 years in the making. The first volume was released in 2021 (scroll down for details), and a second volume is scheduled for the spring of 2027. Read more about the project here, and scroll down to sign up for the newsletter, invitations, and free downloads.
A Wild Idea is the first complete account of a twenty-year citizens’ campaign that either saved a vast wilderness or ruined a local economy, depending on who’s talking. It is based on in-depth interviews with more than five dozen insiders who were central to passage and amendment of the Adirondack Park Agency Act in 1971 and 1973. It’s a rich, exciting narrative about state power and how it was imposed on rural residents, full of surprising and shocking revelations.
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