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Sign at bounds of New York State Forest Preserve land. New York's Forest Preserve is all the land owned by the state within the Adirondack and Catskill parks, managed by its Department of Environmental Conservation. These properties are required to be kept "forever wild" by Article 14 of the state constitution, and thus While today the Forest Preserve is valued largely as a conservation measure, its establishment in the 19th century was motivated primarily by economic considerations. Gradually its inherent worth as a nature preserve came to be seen, as it became a draw for recreation and tourism. A later amendment to Article 14 also made the lands important parts of water supply networks in the state, particularly New York City's, by allowing 3% of the total lands to be flooded for the construction of reservoirs. Contents [hide] 1 Origins 1.1 Adirondacks 1.2 Catskills 2 Article 14 3 Acquisition of new Forest Preserve land 3.1 Blue Line 3.2 Methods of land acquisition 4 Land classifications within the Forest Preserve 4.1 Wilderness 4.2 Wild Forest 4.3 Intensive Use 4.4 Administrative Use 4.5 Land classifications specific to Adirondack Forest Preserve lands 4.5.1 Primitive Area 4.5.2 Canoe Area 4.5.3 Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Origins Adirondacks Main article: Adirondack Park During the years after the Civil War, the state's business community began to fear that unchecked logging in the Adirondacks could, through erosion, silt up the Erie Canal and eliminate the state's major economic advantage. They were informed by George Perkins Marsh's seminal 1865 book, Man and Nature, which made the connection between deforestation and desertification. The Adirondack (top) and Catskill parks within New York. Five years afterward, surveyor Verplanck Colvin beheld the Adirondacks from the summit of Seward Mountain during his mission to map the region. The idea of preserving the lands in some sort of park occurred to him then and there, and after he returned he wrote to his superiors in Albany that action needed to be taken to prevent that kind of despoliation. They appointed him to a committee to study the problem. In 1882, the businessmen began lobbying the legislature in earnest, and were rewarded three years later with the passage of the Forest Preserve Act, which provided that no logging would be allowed on state-owned land. Catskills Main article: Catskill Park Later that year, Ulster County's representatives | ||||
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