Prerogative

     AJES is dedicated to promoting sustainable development within
the region, broadly defined by the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve.
Sustainable development became an important key word or concept following 
its central use in Our Common Future, the report published by the 
United Nation's WorldCommission on Environment and Development in 1987. 
More recently, and much closer to home, sustainable development in the
Adirondacks was a key concept discussed at the Adirondack Centennial
Conference held at Silver Bay, LakeGeorge in May, 1992.
     Sustainable development's importance as a concept, however, has not made it
any easier to define.  In just one reliable count, there are more than 70
sufficiently different definitions in the academic literature.  So it is not
at all surprising that the Centennial participants at Silver Bay could not
agree on a precise definition either.  But, while the precise definition
remains elusive, all of us can agree that sustainable development is good.
As broadly defined byt the U.N. Commission, sustainable development "meets 
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future 
generations to meet their own needs."
     Thus the impetus that launched AJES was the need to know, and in 
some depth, just what have the natural and social sciences discovered about 
our region, which important topics and policy issues are currently under 
discussion, and the arguments on both sides -- all between the covers of one
nonpartisan publication.  Far too often, the important discoveries of scientists
and their perspectives about our environment are buried in highly technical 
journals.  And partisan publications preach to their already converted membership.
Our well-educated, highly organized citizens and our many controversial issues
surrounding the problem of sustainable development make our bioregion a
particularly useful international model for the development of a sustainable 
society.
     With so much at stake, and with so many diverging views of what is best for
the bioregion, we intend AJES to become the verbal platform, the balance
point, amid what has often been acrimonious espousals, rather than true
exchanges, of views.  Our watchword, our guiding concept, is balance:  between
property-rights advocates and "preservationists," between residents and visitors, 
between academics or politicians and everyday citizens, between recreation and 
industry, between progress and tradition. In order to preserve a sense of 
impartiality, we judiciously select articles that imply to the readership this sense
of balance and rationality.  This is not to say that views from the "right" and views
from the "left" will not be published, for they will, though with one side balancing 
the other.  In this way, we expect AJES to communicate broad perspectives 
and serve as a catalyst to help develop and implement solutions.  
     As focused by region and theme, and guided by our watchword, AJES is a
transdisciplinary journal offering a readable presentation of the issues and topics
of current interest in two broad areas.  First, AJES will help to establish our
understanding of what is --- as perceived by the natural and social sciences.  For 
example, in this issue, we'll examine mud from the bottoms of several lakes in the 
Adirondacks to see not only how sediment cores reveal ancient secrets through 
paleolimnology but also how the region's ecosystems may respond to global climate
changes in the future, based on how they responded in the past.
     Second, AJES is also a forum for discussions of what ought to be,
clarifying issues, philosophies, social institutions and policy instruments to help 
us understand as well as to facilitate and manage the transition to a sustainable 
society.  In this issue, for example, AJES offers an insight into the 
potentially important role the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve may
play in the region, an environmentalist's vision of the Park, a discussion of one 
approach toward what is meant by sustainable development, and an in-depth essay 
exploring the Park as a case study for wilderness protection.
     In sum, AJES is designed to create a tone somewhere between a
magazine and a journal;  the targeted readership is educated though not necessarily
academic people who are concerned about the region; contributing authors will 
cover a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives, and among them will be 
representatives from industry, from colleges and universities, from local and state 
government, from the natural and social sciences, and from the environmental and 
property rights movements, to mention just a few.  As editors of a 
transdisciplinary journal our purpose is to promote the transfer of useful 
information from those that generate it to those who can best use it.  In the 
process we hope to foster a dialogue intended to find common ground among all the
different viewpoints.

Gary Chilson & David Vinopal
Paul Smith's College
January, 1994