As an advocate for the “forever wild” Forest Preserve, Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve periodically reviews NYS DEC work plans to ensure that activities such as trail maintenance on the public’s Forest Preserve are undertaken in compliance with Article XIV of the state constitution, the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan and DEC regulations.
These work plans are regularly posted at the department’s website, and have become more transparent, conservative in terms of tree cutting or alteration of the preserve’s environment, and descriptive about trail work involved since 2021. That is the year of the NYS Court of Appeals ruling that the department was violating Article XIV by authorizing the construction of wider, flatter, straighter and faster snowmobile trails on Wild Forest (in the legal case of Protect v. DEC and APA) .
Since that important ruling, the department has more carefully followed legal guidelines of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. That plan states that in the park’s wilderness, primitive and canoe areas, the use of motorized equipment to conduct trail work, such as use of chainsaws, is generally prohibited to ensure that the wilderness definition is honored and guidelines for management and use observed. The primary wilderness guideline, with the force of law behind it, is “to achieve and perpetuate a natural plant and animal community where human influence is not apparent.”…