Diamond worked under New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller for years. The Republicans had complete control of congress at this point. However, these Republicans were at the front of environmental action. Interesting to note how bipartisan the issue really was at this point and how personal political gains have clouded the issue today.
Diamond served on the commission working to furthermore protect the Adirondacks in the 1960s. His hard work climaxed with new zoning laws, the foundation of the Adirondack Park Association and the reformation (and eventual direction) of the Department of Environmental Conservation. Before this, political order lacked one large agency that oversaw environmental policies.
Diamond as DEC commissioner in 1972
Yet, this political shift was largely unpopular to many both inside and outside of the political sphere. Zoning laws changed the control people had over their private land. Restricting human influence on this land interferes with personal rights and economic prosperity–sacrifices that many were unwilling to make.
It really is hard to put these environmentalist ideas into practice, especially within politics. When the ideas reach the political scale, we become selfish, not wanting to change habits or slow down business that could be harmful to the environment. This struggle between human prosperity and environmental prosperity is a theme throughout the Adirondacks and an even larger challenge on the political level.
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/31107/20160225/remembering-henry-diamond-one-of-the-architects-of-the-modern-adirondacks
super cool to see how political parties shift ideologies, even within fifty years, and how political issues themselves shift. I'm always surprised to find historical politicians who advocated for environmental protection for its intrinsic value (not that Diamond necessarily did) before Climate Change gave environmentalism a more utilitarian logic.
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