The Great Experiment in Conservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park

By: William Porter

Book Overview

The Adirondack region of New York State is, in many respects, America's cauldron of conservation. It was there, more than a century ago, that wanton exploitation of forests first aroused concern about human impact on the environment. It was there that Americans first began to set aside lands proclaimed as "forever wild." The establishment of the Adirondack Park created an immense landscape of 6 million acres composed of a mixture of public and private lands in nearly equal proportion. This unprecedented blend of human communities within wild lands makes the Adirondack Park perhaps one of the greatest case studies in conservation and development in U.S. history. Representing a remarkable achievement in environmental scholarship and drawn from decades of research, The Great Experiment in Conservation captures the wisdom born of the last thirty years of the park's evolution. The editors bring together leading scholars, activists, and practitioners--those who know the Park's origin and the realities of living in a protected area--to narrate this history. Organized into three sections, contributors explore the ecological, cultural, and economic aspects of the region, drawing lessons from successes and failures as they struggle to find the right balance of private interests and public controls. With keen insight and deep passion, the authors reveal the Adirondack Park's rich natural and cultural history in shaping conservation policy, providing vital contributions to the future study of land preservation. Contributors include: Herman Daly, Bill McKibben, Barbara McMartin, Philip G. Terrie, Amy Vedder, and Bill Weber.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815632312
• ISBN13: 9780815632313
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 2.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A core addition to academic library Environmental Studies reference collections

Adirondack Park, located in the state of New York, is composed of six million acres of land that is half public and half private, making it one of the signal case studies in U.S. conservation history and development. In "The Great Experiment In Conservation: Voices From The Adirondack Park", the team of William F. Porter (Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Director of the Adirondack Ecological Center at SUNY ESF), Jon D. Erickson (Associate Professor of Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and fellow of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont), and Ross S. Whaley (Emeritus President and Professor of SUNY ESF, as well as the former chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency, and who served on the Governor's Commission for the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century) have knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited informed and informative contributions and commentaries from Herman Daly, Bill McKibben, Barbara McMartin, Philip G. Terrie, Amy Vedder, and Bill Weber to provide a historical overview and analysis of the ecological, cultural, and economic aspects and relationships of the communities and the environment of the Adirondack Park. A seminal work of impressive scholarship, "The Great Experiment In Conservation" is a core addition to academic library Environmental Studies reference collections, and especially recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in American conversation history and land preservation in general, and the Adirondack Park in particular.