At the end of March, The Nature Conservancy closed on a deal transferring 92,000 acres of protected forestland in the Adirondacks to Danish timber investors.

Sound a little strange? Here’s the deal: The land, part of The Nature Conservancy's largest single land purchase in New York, will continue to be used for sustainable forestry and recreation like  snowmobiling, hiking, hunting and fishing. It will also be managed under a binding conservation easement that protects river corridors, wetlands and other valuable ecological assets.

Conservation Scientist Michelle Brown and a team of New York Natural Heritage Program scientists spent two summers completing an “ecoaudit” of this forestland. Nature New York sat down with Michelle to get the full scoop on her report.

Nature New York: You were handed the enormous task of assessing the 161,000 acres purchased by the Conservancy in June of 2007. How did you tackle that?

Michelle Brown: My first step was to meet with the science advisors on our board who offered some great practical advice and big-picture perspective.

After that, the team assembled all of the preexisting data
we could find and plugged it into a map using GIS technology. We used that map to pinpoint places to check out on the ground.

NNY: Were there any surprises in your findings?

Brown: Some of the best surprises were things that we could only find once we were on the ground, in the thick of it. There were forested areas that were really high quality even though they had been commercial, working forests for 120 years. We also found some great species like Bicknell’s thrush, peregrine falcon, moose and dragonflies, and some rare species, too.


NNY: How were the results of your assessments incorporated into the conservation plans for this land?

Brown: The places of the highest biodiversity importance and integrity were recommended for the highest level of protection afforded by the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Those areas that would be successfully maintained under a working forest were put into the conservation easement category.
 

NNY: Twenty-five years from now, how will we know if the conservation strategies of 2009 are still working? What happens if they are not?

Brown: Well, our first step was to flag the most ecologically valuable lands for addition to the “forever
wild” forest preserve. As for the lands that will go into easement or other ownership, we’re requiring a biological assessment every 15 years. Our baseline data will help us track these natural communities, and over time we can see how they are faring. Luckily, the easement allows for corrections to be made if necessary to ensure conservation objectives are being met.
 

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Carl Heilman II (Adirondacks); Photo © Darran Crabtree/TNC (Michelle Brown); Photo © Carl Heilman II (Lake); Photo © Carl Heilman II (preserve); Photo © Meghan Johnstone/TNC (plant).