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Thursday, November 27, 2014

An Unexpected Connection

This past Sunday I spent part of my evening talking to Nancy Walker Bush Ellis, president George H. W. Bush’s only sister. She is 89 years old and lives in Boston, which is where I met her at a dinner held after my godfather’s faculty concert. We ended up talking about something that has been coming up again and again in Terrie’s writing – the threat of increased tourism on the value and beauty of a particular area. She has a home in Kennebunkport, and was telling me about how disappointed she was about the tourists and souvenir shops that came with them. This initially came as a surprise, but made more sense when I read up on her environmental actions that I previously knew nothing about.

  -->  read more about her on her Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Walker_Bush_Ellis


      She told me about Walker’s Point in particular, which is an oceanfront view of the Bush’s summer home--one of the hottest tourist attractions in Kennebunkport. Once little-known and unoccupied, the site now attracts tons of people looking for a scenic drive, not unlike the road up Whiteface. We discussed how difficult it is to balance local economic needs while preserving an area whose natural beauty attracts an increasing, and often harmful, amount of human traffic. At this point in the semester, I have no doubt that the Adirondack Park provides a global case study for this particular dilemma, but this is the first example I have stumbled upon on my own. At some point during the conversation, she asked me if this type of management was a field I’d be interested in pursuing as a career. I replied in all honesty that I had no idea what I was doing with my life, but that it was a possibility. Upon leaving later that night, she said, “Have a thrilling life!”

Monday, November 24, 2014

Harkening back to Wednesday's discussion about the SLMP.

The Adirondack Council published an "Action Alert" regarding the State Land Master Plan, A.K.A. "The guiding document for the management of all publicly-owned Forest Preserve lands in the Adirondack Park." I thought be nice to post their alert on the blog since it's currently a central topic in the class.

Also, the Council mentioned that the APA is seeking feedback on the plan, so you actually have the ability to submit written recommendations to them by using the address listed on this site.


Also, I was poking around the Adirondack Council site and found a really helpful page of recommendations. This page addresses some of the vocabulary we've been using all semester including

wilderness (we've already looked at this definition several times)
wild forest "permit[s] a somewhat higher degree of human use than in wilderness... while retaining an essentially wild character"
canoe "A Canoe Area is one where the watercourses or the number... of lakes and ponds make possible a remote and unconfined type of water-oriented recreation"
primitive "essentially wilderness in character, but contains structures... or uses that are inconsistent with wilderness... or of a size and character not meeting with wilderness standards"
intensive use "one in which the state provide facilities for intensive forms of outdoor recreation"
wild, scenic, and recreational rivers

It's a helpful site -- you all should check it out!

Also, what are your takes on these definitions? Are they so vague that they don't really accomplish anything? Or do you think they actually drive the point home in helpful ways?