The Adirondack Park Going Beyond New York State

Bill Weber
https://environment.yale.edu/profile/albert-weber/

Although our class focuses on a specific region, I believe that it is important to remember that the Adirondack Park does not exist in a vacuum. Moreover, there are many aspects of the Adirondack Park that can be directly applied to places on the opposite side of the world (i.e. China). Bill Weber, author of The Great Experiment in Conservation: Voices from the Adirondack Park, argues that the Adirondack Park can be a model for global conservation. In his interview about Rwanda’s conservation approach with graduate student, Lee Gross, Weber gives valuable insight on conservation and the importance of governance. Even though this interview was about Rwanda and not China, I believe that China could also benefit from looking to the Adirondack Park as a model for conservation.

In his aforementioned book, Weber states, “If there is a single lesson…to learn from the Adirondacks it is the role of the private sector in assuring a more diversified economic base, with a greater percentage of benefits staying in local hands within the regional economy”(1). This significance of the private sector is evident in China’s recent conservation efforts. In 2010, The Nature Conservancy, an American charitable organization, partnered with the Chinese government to create a new model of conservation: land trust reserves (2). Together, they acquired 27,000 acres of land in Sichuan Province (a critical habitat of the giant panda) and lawfully gave the land an elevated, protected status. Under the land trust reserve model (that involves purchasing leases of land), the Conservancy obtained powerful control over the management of the land in the new reserve that compared starkly with previously created nature reservations in China (2).  

Sichuan Province Land Trust Reserve
www.nature.org 

In the interview, Weber asserts that good community relations are critical to successful conservation because “there is a need to compensate those who bear the costs of conservation, most often local communities”(1). He commends the WCS Adirondack Program as a good example of local community representation. In addition to the Adirondack Park Agency (that implements a top-down system), Weber argues that the WCS Adirondack Program is important to the goals of conservation and governance of the park. Yet I wonder if this local representation is achievable in communist China. China has about 1.4 billion people. Therefore, does the Chinese government have the time and national incentive to listen to the local communities affected by the creation of new land trust reserves? The consequence of the Three Gorges Dam – a project that displaced 1.2 million people – reflects an indifferent Chinese government. However, the power of the private sector, such as the Nature Conservancy, gives me hope that such community relations are possible in the future.

Despite the difference in scale of the Sichuan Province Land Trust Reserve and the Adirondack Park, I think that conservationists should draw parallels between the two and develop their global perspectives on conservation. Undoubtedly, China would benefit from importing conservation models from the U.S. Although the two countries have conspicuous differences, models are malleable and, therefore, Chinese conservationists can still learn from the governance of the Adirondack Park. As Weber concludes, “the question isn’t what works and how can we copy this functioning model, but what we learn from what we do.” In other words, no one model is perfect and will be suitable for every place. However, conservationists can always learn from one another because they share common goals.

Sources:

      1)  http://www.ajes.org/v17/gross2011.php

2    2) http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/asiaandthepacific/china/placesweprotect/china-sichuan-province-land-trust-reserve.xml