Free Republic

A 14,600-acre piece of the Adirondacks long prized by environmentalists for its forests and wetlands, including a pond where Ralph Waldo Emerson led a “philosophers’ camp,” was purchased on Thursday by a preservation group for $16 million, the group said. The property, which had been owned by a Vermont family for 56 years, will not immediately be open to the public because of leases for recreational hunting and fishing that will last several more years. But the group, the Nature Conservancy, said the purchase meant that the land would be protected and ultimately added to the Adirondack Forest Preserve in...

SCHROON, N.Y. — Nosing into a shallow bay on Schroon Lake, Steve LaMere peered over the side of his pontoon boat. He was on an unusual reconnaissance mission, looking for signs of an aggressive aquatic invader, a stringy herb from Eurasia that once adorned American aquariums but has no business here in the Adirondacks — or anywhere in North America. “I’m a fifth-generation Adirondacker, and I take this stuff personally,” said Mr. LaMere, a certified lake manager and ecologist who is on the front lines of the fight against invasive species. “The Adirondack Park is where I’ve drawn my line...