Follensby

Recognizing these unique attributes, in 2024 The Nature Conservancy and New York State, through a conservation easement, established the Follensby Research Preserve as a reference site to advance science and education in a climate-changing world while providing a refugium for cold-water fish and other aquatic plants and animals. This easement allows for managed access for scientific and educational purposes and became the first easement held by New York State to explicitly allow a landowner to provide Indigenous Peoples with access to land for cultural purposes.

Through a second conservation easement, the Raquette River Recreation Area provides public access opportunities to roughly 6,000 acres along 10 miles of the western shore of the Raquette River for the first time in more than a century. This section of the Raquette River is part of the iconic Northern Forest Canoe Trail and a portion of the longest canoe route in the Adirondacks that runs 90 miles between Old Forge and Saranac Lake. Now, the public may explore a beautiful and extensive stretch of silver maple floodplain forest and other wild areas.

Several private timber companies owned Follensby Pond in the 1800s and early 1900s, and, reportedly, some of their logging practices devastated parts of the surrounding forests. The Nature Conservancy has been caring for these lands since it acquired the property from the McCormick family in 2008. Our commitment to Follensby includes honoring the full biological and cultural relationships in this special place, informed by collaboration with Indigenous Peoples and assisted through our partnership with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Follensby also holds significant historical value as the site of the 1858 Philosophers’ Camp, where Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Stillman and other prominent 19th-century thinkers spent a month immersed in nature. Soon after, stories of the Philosophers’ gathering spread, and people began to flock to the Adirondacks to seek their own solitude. Maps pointed the way to Follensby, which became overrun with tourists. When one of the original 10 philosophers returned to the site in 1884, he wrote that all around were “ashes and ruin.”

Today, the land has recovered and offers lessons on resilience. In 1950, for instance, Follensby was one of the last places in the Adirondack Park with nesting bald eagles. By the 1960s, eagle populations had plummeted due to the use of the now-banned pesticide DDT, and only one pair remained in New York. This once endangered bird’s populations have since rebounded thanks in part to DEC’s introduction of bald eagle chicks at Follensby that were brought in from Alaska in the 1980s. Follensby was selected as the sole site for raising and releasing the birds in the Adirondacks because of its abundant habitat and lack of human disturbance. As many as 60 eaglets were released at Follensby over several years, and today more than 170 nesting pairs of bald eagles live throughout the Adirondacks and New York State.

The Nature Conservancy acquired and has been caring for Follensby Pond since 2008 with funding provided by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through Walmart’s Acres for America Program and the generosity of other foundations and our many individual donors.

Funding for the conservation easements was provided by New York State’s Environmental Protection Fund (EPF). The EPF supports climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, improves agricultural resources to promote sustainable agriculture, protects water sources, advances conservation efforts and provides recreational opportunities for New Yorkers.