Meet Our Newest Members: The Adirondack Council and SUGi
Adirondack Council for Global Rewilding
The Adirondack Council (https://www.adirondackcouncil.org) advocates, educates, and, when necessary, litigates, on behalf of the wild character and ecological integrity of New York’s Adirondack Park. The Council is a member-supported non-profit organisation with a history of strengthening protections of this six-million-acre park (2.4 Mha), which is a mix of protected state-owned lands, and private lands zoned for limited development. About 2.8 million acres (1.1 Mha) in the Park are protected as “Forever Wild” Forest Preserve lands, and another 800,000 acres (0.3 Mha) are protected under varying levels by conservation easements. Created in 1892, the Adirondack Park encompasses the world’s largest intact, temperate, deciduous forest. It also is the largest park in the contiguous United States.
Arguably, the Adirondack Park is where rewilding began more than a century ago as one of the earliest attempts to let Nature heal on a landscape scale. This bold experiment in rewilding has proven successful, as most of the species exterminated during the last centuries by logging, damming, and overhunting have returned.
The Adirondack Council joins the Global Rewilding Alliance to achieve “Half Earth goals” of protecting at least half of Earth’s lands and waters in Nature reserves. Although half of this regional landscape is protected, the Park still lacks its top carnivores and suffers from diminished populations of other species. Rewilding priorities now include removing obsolete dams and roads; installing wildlife crossings on busy roads; limiting incursions of forest pests and pathogens; expanding the Forest Preserve; welcoming home top predators; and protecting habitat connections to the Park.
SUGi is a people-powered platform on a mission to make the restoration of biodiversity simple, shareable, and societally transformative. SUGi offers authentic rewilding that connects anyone anywhere to Nature and delivers results that are trackable, transparent, and visible in a matter of months. Through powerful storytelling, SUGi shows that forests do not have to be far-flung nature reserves, isolated from human life. We can grow them right in our own cities. With SUGi, green deserts like vacant lots, abandoned sites, and parking spots are repurposed. SUGi turns unused space into a perfect habitat for birds to nest, for fruits to grow, for fresh & cooler air to circulate, and for people to feel healthy and whole.
SUGi forests are special. They are created according to a proven Japanese technique called the Miyawaki method. They grow very rapidly, use no chemicals, capture 16x more carbon, and are 100x more biodiverse than monoculture tree stands. SUGialso plays a critical role in citizen engagement with inspiring and empowering storytelling that illustrates how simple and fun it is to become a biodiversity builder. SUGi acts as a global platform and culture hub for those they call THE REWILDING GENERATION.
SUGi launched in 2019, with an Urban Forest in Beirut, Lebanon. Today, this vibrant forest has survived a revolution, a pandemic, and a toxic explosion. SUGi now has about 100 projects across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Asia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Find out more: www.sugiproject.com/projects. SUGi is supporting partner of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.