Give new Adirondack Forest Preeserve lands a wilderness classification, groups say

They're right, as a matter of fact. True wilderness, whether in New York State's Adirondack Park or on federal public land, is the surest and most responsible category for wild lands. The media likes to categorize the decision-making process as some sort of "debate," but there is no real debate: Wild places deserve to be protected as wilderness.

Adirondack loon sentinels lack funding this summer

I had two really memorable experiences with common loons - a true bird of the North -- while living on Plattsburgh Air Force Base in the late 1980s. One spring night, as Monica and I were sleeping the night in the new camping tent we had just purchased, a loon called from Lake Champlain. Our house in on-base housing was literally right on top of a bluff overlooking the lake and its Crab Island a mile or so off shore. Teh other occasion also involved a calling loon. We were getting settled in the bunk room of the Adirondack Mountain Club's Adirondack Loj one spring night when the bird called from nearby Heart Lake. Two great wilderness-quality experiences for two budding birders. Here's sad news about the men and women who watch over those Adirondack lakes known to harbor nesting loons.

Ecology lessons from the Cold War

The headline alone snared me to read this article as I am a Cold War veteran (7 years in Strategic Air Command out of an Air Force career of 26 years). The awful truth is, however, that the losses of biodiversity (our natural heritage) continue to escalate into what is universally called the sixth great extinction crisis. I saw if for myself this morning in the Adirondacks of New York State; and the 6 million-acre Adirondack Park is now more than half public land. But still, even in a concisely protected place like that, the losses continue -- all of them due to the human community's inability to even consider living modestly and in concert with the land.

Favorite places and Wild Nature - some words for keeeping them

This is the column I wrote several weeks ago for publication in a Sunday edition of the Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pa. Old amigos know that's where I worked as a daily journalist for a decade-and-a-half while also finishing a 26-year career as an Air Force officer. Read on and remember well your own favorite places. And also fight for their protection from "growth" and economic this-and-that.

Clear-cut logging debate heats up in Adirondacks

Clear-cutting a forest amounts only to greed - a drive for money at the expense of natural values. There is no "land ethic" involved in such logging. I feel a long essay coming on. North Country Public Radio offers this look at a pending Adirondack Park Agency decision.