In 2008, a 440-acre, relatively undeveloped forested parcel just west of the Adirondack Park in Forestport was donated as a conservation easement. The property contains a variety of habitat types including northern hardwood forests, hemlock, red spruce and fir, open meadows and wetlands. The eastern part of the easement is included in an Important Bird Area designated by Audubon New York called the Moose River Plains/Blue Ridge Area.
According to Audubon’s publication Important Bird Areas of NY, Habitats Worth Protecting, 2nd Edition, “the area holds a diverse group of productive habitats, including dense stands of mixed growth woodlands, flat lands, open woodlands, and black spruce bogs. This area contains some of the best lowland boreal forests and wetlands in the western Adirondacks, and is on the southern periphery of the range of many boreal forest birds. …privately owned portions of this site should be protected from forest-fragmenting development.
Sustainable forest management on the private holdings has potential to provide habitat for species requiring successional forest habitats or disturbed forests.” This conservation easement forwards those goals.
