Opposing Interests in Adirondacks Park

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Four, Number Five
May/June 1995

CHURCHES BRING TOGETHER OPPOSING INTERESTS IN ADIRONDACKS PARK

The remarkable thing was that those people were sitting together in the same room and talking to one another!

Seventy five people from across upstate New York gathered at Saranac Lake in February to explore a vision for the region that might be acceptable to them all. Participants represented businesses, local governments, environmental groups, tourists and residents trying to make a living in the Adirondack Park, the largest in the United States. Most were church members. The New York State Council of Churches and the Eco-Justice Project sponsored the event, titled The Adirondacks: In Search of Common Ground.

To the suggestion that the first element of the vision must be to preserve and enhance the present open-space character of the region, a town supervisor replied, "Every Adirondacks town should have the right to achieve a threshold level on economic development, to provide an adequate quality of life for its residents. Then the value of open space comes more to the fore."

The divergent views of tourists, developers, conservationists, and local entrepreneurs have in the past frequently prevented meaningful discussion. But the often reiterated commitment of church representatives to the needs of people as well as to the preservation of our natural environment kept the participants talking with one another. Interdependence was held up as an important building block for the Christian understanding of ourselves and our world.

"The church is a place where people can be heard, a community strong enough to tolerate dissent," insisted pastor Barbara Lemmel. After characterizing the idolatries she claimed underlie much of the debate about the future of the Adirondacks, she added that the true God calls on us to love one another and to be good stewards of God's creation.

Participants met in small groups to identify an agenda for Adirondack churches ö listening, giving a voice to persons with differing views, and fostering theological reflection.

The conference closed with the selection of local church members to form an Adirondacks-wide group of churches that will continue the deliberations begun here on how people and nature can live together in harmony in a region of great natural beauty, limited economic rsources and a long but troubled history of wilderness and enterprise coexisting side by side.

By Rev. Earl Arnold,
PO Box 88,
Mexico NY 13114.

For more, write EcoJustice Project, Anabel Taylor Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-1001.