review by Tim Holmes
As a compilation of 34 essays on just about as many issues, this new contribution to the Adirondack literature is a literary conference on the Adirondack Park with presentations by many of the Adirondack’s most informed researchers and observers.
With authors such as Charles Canham on forestry issues, Chad Dawson on tourism, Craig Gilborn on Great Camps, Karen Roy on acid rain, Rainer Brocke on predators, Stuart Buchanan on the DEC, Robert Glennon on the APA, John Penney on regulatory issues, and Terry Martino on economic development, to name only a few, the volume is an excellent primer for the new student of Adirondack issues as well as providing a convenient resource for the well-informed. Even the most knowledgeable will have a few of their facts corrected by the nine-page Adirondack Park chronology of key events.
To the editors’ credit there is disagreement and inconsistency among the essays, remaining true to form for any discussion of Adirondack Park issues. Whether in 1890, 2009 or anytime in between, there tends to be a difference of opinion on how and why decisions were made, laws were passed and lands were protected. In their introduction to each of the three main sections that organize the essays, the volume’s editors – Willam Porter, Jon Erikson and Ross Whaley – illuminate the importance of those differences and the related conflicts that continue to shape discussions and management decisions about the Adirondack Park.
At only 12-pages each on average, it is hard to imagine anyone not finding an essay of interest. The most involved and informed on the Adirondacks will find many – while also thinking of many others that could have been or should have been included. For those, we will have to wait for a Volume Two.
Without exceptional and inspirational writing, awareness of the great experiment will be limited and support for it even more so. It should be documented with great writing, essays that represent the Adirondack Park’s value to those outside of the region and beyond New York’s borders – including those who might not know a carry from a cairn. Well written essays on the Adirondack Park can inspire just about anyone to consider the interrelationships of conservation, biodiversity and sustainability. The following four essays from the collection seem to have that ability.
Great Camps and Conservation, by Craig Gilborn
Wildlife for a Wilderness, by Rainer Brocke
A Perspective from the Forest-Products Industry, by Roger Dziengeleski
The Adirondack Park in Global Perspective, by Bill Weber and Amy Vedder
* The Great Experiment in Conservation, Voices from the Adirondack Park. Edited by William Porter, Jon Erickson and Ross Whaley. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2009.
