“What’s more, the state has made another important investment in the forest-product industry and the future of the Adirondacks. Without the state’s conservation easement program, global market forces may have erased the timber industry from the Adirondack landscape.”

ACCESS

The conservation easement also includes access to nearly 30,000 acres that have been off limits to the public for decades, including Sugarloaf Mountain, the Norton and Plumadore Ranges and Barnes, Grass, Figure Eight and Fish Hole ponds.

In 2004, a deal was struck by the Pataki administration with International Paper for conservation easements on 257,000 acres of forest and wetlands in nine counties.

Under later conservation easements, logging by Lyme, which bought most of IP’s Adirondack holdings, was to continue through “sustainable forestry” practices, including selective harvesting and planting of trees.