ABSTRACT
The ecological impact of growth in the communities surrounding Whiteface remains a concern to observers of the Adirondack Park. The Wildlife Conservation Society has published the Adirondack Atlas, intended to engage various concerned constituencies in the culture and ecology of the Park. The Adirondack Park creates a nationally unique land use regime for private land, with overlapping state and local controls based on a legislatively adopted plan administered by a state agency attached to the governor's office. The state role allows land use planning to occur at the regional level; albeit a region so large that disaggregation into meaningful ecological components could be useful to resolving ecological issues. The state's permit jurisdiction enforces the pattern anticipated by the Plan and adds an impact-reduction component to specific project review. Terrestrial ecology and social and economic parameters important to understanding future directions remain less consistently addressed by the state or localities.
