Conference
Summary
Third Annual Conference on the Adirondacks
~ Conference Summary ~
The Third Annual Conference on the Adirondacks marked the third meeting of the Adirondack Research Consortium (ARC), a transdisciplinary society committed to promote and facilitate research on the Adirondack region of New York State. From the Adirondack citizen to the university scholar, the ARC has sought to include the many voices of the region in a forum committed to discourse and debate under an umbrella of academic standard. The Third Conference served as another critical step towards this end.
As with the first organizational meeting at Paul Smith's College two and a half years ago, the Adirondack weather was perhaps the most discussed topic of the conference. The first session Monday morning kicked off with two inches of snow on the ground in a renovated (but unheated) barn with audible words and visible breath. Morning sessions included "The Local Government Balancing Act: Environmental Stewardship and Economic Development," a poster session containing informational, pictorial, and computer displays, and a special discussion forum on evaluating the year old Pataki Adirondack Park Agency. The forum featured both the chairman of commissioners and the executive director of the Agency, executive directors of the Adirondack Council and the Resident's Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, and an Adirondack town supervisor. With such diverse (and often competing) interests on hand, and with former APA officials in attendance, this forum marked a historic occasion in recent Park history.
Following a mass exodus to warmer quarters, Monday afternoon sessions included "Monitoring Environmental Change", "Wildlife and Land Management", and "Evolving Land Use Policies." The keynote address Monday evening featured Bill McKibben, Adirondack author of The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, and Hope, Human and Wild. McKibben challenged the audience to contemplate the historic, social, and environmental significance of the Adirondack Park to a larger world. As a working model of living within limits, and moving towards balance between human and non-human communities, McKibben looks to the Adirondacks for hope in a world under increasing, human-driven, environmental assault.
Tuesday featured sessions on "Reading Water's History", "Developments in Forest Inventory and Assessment", "Conservation and Stewardship Initiatives", and "The Adirondack Mountains: Geological and Socioeconomic Exploration." The morning included a second discussion forum entitled "Teaching the Adirondacks: Opportunities and Obstacles" with a central theme of developments in using the Adirondack region as a premier laboratory for experiential, applied, and participatory learning in environmental studies curricula.
Session and forum participants totaled sixty-two. Twenty-four faculty and nine students represented over fourteen universities and colleges. Nine representatives from state and federal agencies were on hand, representing the Adirondack Park Agency, N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation, Palisades Interstate Park Commission, and the U.S. Forest Service. In the private and not-for-profit category, fifteen people were in attendance. Representatives of local governments totaled five. Building on this diversity in presentations, over one hundred people were in attendance over the three days of activities.
Perhaps the most productive and rewarding discussions occurred outside of formal sessions, centered around fireplaces, dining tables, and close sleeping quarters at Camp Sagamore. The historic Adirondack Great Camp provided an idea setting amongst the aristocratic treasures of an Adirondack era built on the riches of industrialization and a contradictory rediscovery of the natural world. A walking tour of the estate and slide show of its history highlighted the rich natural and cultural history of the region.
In a critical year of development in a young Adirondack Research Consortium, the Third Annual Conference on the Adirondacks succeeded in building on the mult-disciplinary, inclusive mission of past conferences, while building ties between Adirondack researchers and expanding the base for publishable papers in the organization's Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies (AJES). Nearly fifty new members were recruited, as well as establishing a small savings account for future growth and support of the ConsortiumÍs mission. Both the Cornell Center for the Environment and Sagamore Institute should be commended for their foresight in ensuring both the success of the conference and growth in ARC membership.