Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter looks at the major environmental laws of the United States after the Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan was signed into law. It also presents Senator Henry Jackson's National Land Use Policy Act in 1970. The act used incentives and sanctions to encourage states to develop land use plans for environmentally sensitive areas and large development sites. The chapter then highlights the Adirondack Park Agency's (APA) job to protect the wilderness character of a state park that was much larger than any of the national parks that existed in 1973. Many regional land use plans of the era depended on local governments taking voluntary incentives, but the Adirondack law gave a state agency statutory authority to protect environmental quality by reviewing and modifying zoning regulations. The chapter recounts the APA's three main goals: to prevent building in the park's backcountry, to make sure that development happened in places where it would not hurt the park's wild character, and to protect Adirondack shorelines. Ultimately, the chapter examines the emergence of threats to the ecological health of the Adirondacks that are beyond the park agency's power to control.