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Meeting Adirondack Information Needs
ANCA has joined with the Adirondack Research Consortium and other interested organizations to identify immediate and long-term information needs for the Adirondack Park. The effort began with a workshop on November 29 last year at the Adirondack Park Visitor Interpretative Center in Newcomb, NY, attended by over 50 local government officials, State and County staff, professional land managers, academic researchers, and not-for-profit representatives. Goals for the workshop were to bring regional and local decision-makers together to launch an ambitious, ongoing effort that will:
- Identify practical, applied research questions,
- Help focus future scientific study, and
- Help develop problem-solving tools.
“ANCA is very excited about this initiative,” explained Terry Martino, “because it represents the first time in ANCA’s memory that so many different groups and persons with diverse backgrounds have come together to wrestle with a wide array of information gaps that government, scientists, and citizens believe must be filled if overall management of the Adirondack Park is to be improved.” “The implications for economic development and the quality of life in Adirondack communities indeed could be far reaching,” she added.
Questions like the following were posed at the workshop to stimulate the group’s thinking:
- What are the best practices to provide health care to aging populations?
- What information is available to help assess wind tower proposals?
- What information is available about wildlife in communities and how that information might support local tourism efforts?
- What are the best techniques for preventing the spread of invasive species?
Hundreds of more questions were added to a wide-ranging list developed during the day-long event. But no attempt was made at this early stage of the effort to provide answers. Instead, the participants, working in small groups, brainstormed all those things about the Adirondack Park that they believed should be explored. They also recognized that a series of more specific steps would be necessary to begin providing meaningful answers to their many questions, steps such as:
- Identifying existing, but not readily available information
- Identifying potential sources of funding to support needed research
- Identifying stakeholder and researcher teams to begin exploring specific research and funding opportunities
- Facilitating the transfer of information among researchers, decision-makers, and citizens in on-going ways
Meanwhile, in another exciting, separate, yet closely related action to address local government information needs in the region, ANCA has partnered with the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages (AATV) and the Towns of Arietta and Chester to secure funding provided by the New York State Department of State under the Quality Communities Grant Program. The grant, awarded this past fall, will be used to launch a study of existing conditions, infrastructure capacity and community development needs of all 104 municipalities in the Adirondack Park, with the intent of determining their most pressing issues and information needs, and forming recommendations for action to resolve impediments to community development across the Park.
The details of this latter study, called the Adirondack Park Regional Assessment Project, are still being worked out. But more information about both initiatives can be obtained by attending the Adirondack Park Local Government Day Conference slated for Lake Placid this year on March 22. The event will be preceded by open houses at the APA and DEC headquarters in Ray Brook, and by an informal get-together at the Crowne Plaza in Lake Placid on March 21. This year, six different State and local government groups are sponsoring this annual event, which historically has attracted hundreds of participants. For more information about the conference see either www.apa.state.ny.us or www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss.
Greg Hill can be reached at anca-hill@northnet.org.
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