On Giving Tuesday, Please Consider Supporting Research in the Adirondacks!

Photo by Laurel Fitts

To better support and sustain our work in the Adirondacks, we have launched a $20,000 Matching Fund Campaign to Sustain Excellence in Research to continue quality expert programming on the key issues facing the region. We have already raised $12,000 through gifts from generous donors and our Board of Directors. We are asking our corporate partners, members and friends to consider a matching gift toward our final goal. Contributions of any size are appreciated, and will be matched dollar-for-dollar, doubling the impact. Please consider a tax deductible donation with a credit card or by check today. 

Please, we need your help!  There has never been a greater need for science and research to inform policies impacting the future of the Adirondacks!  Thank you!

AJES Submission Deadline Extended!

Coming in 2019!

AJES Volume 23 Call-for-Submissions

The Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies (AJES) is now accepting submissions

for Volume 23, which will be published in the spring of 2019.
The featured section is dedicated to “Communicating Science and Policy.”

To Learn More

25th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks

See Photos from the Conference!

Volume 22 of AJES Is Now Available!

The Adirondack Research Consortium and Union College are pleased to announce that Volume 22 of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies is now available to order. 

Learn how you can order a copy today.

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Rick Fedrizzi to Keynote Annual Conference on the Adirondacks

Rick Fedrizzi, President and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in Washington, DC, will keynote the 19th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks in Lake Placid this May 16th and 17th, 2012.

Rick was appointed President & CEO of the rapidly growing organization in April 2004. Under his leadership, USGBC has undertaken a far-reaching agenda that has tripled its membership, broadened its influence, and cemented its role as a leadership voice in the global sustainability movement.

A cornerstone of that agenda has been USGBC's internationally recognized LEED green building certification program. The growth of LEED has led to more than 151,000 individuals earning either the LEED AP or LEED Green Associate professional credential.

The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a 501 c3 non-profit organization committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.With a community comprising 78 local affiliates, nearly 16,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 170,000 LEED Professional Credential holders, USGBC is the driving force of an industry that is projected to contribute $554 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product from 2009-2013. USGBC leads an unlikely diverse constituency of builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofit organizations, elected officials and concerned citizens, and teachers and students. Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% water consumption and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.

Information on the 19th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks can be found at www.adkresearch.org.

AJES to move to open access, internet platform

[The following editorial was published in the summer issue of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2008]

Public Knowledge, Open Access
Jon D. Erickson

When the Adirondack Research Consortium and the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies were launched in 1994 I was in graduate school, interested in research on Adirondack economy and ecology, and desperate for a forum to pose questions, exchange ideas, and ultimately be apart of the policy and management process. Gone were the days of my professors – typewriters and armies of statisticians replaced by the PC – but the collections of the university library were still the dominant form of research. A literature review meant that the most current research cited was already three or more years old, reflecting the lag time from field work, analysis, and writing to peer review, editing, and publishing. The use of electronic listservs to form research networks was just beginning to narrow the gap between question and answer (with our very own Adiron-L as part of that first generation). Dial-up home internet access was a luxury, spam amounted to a few unsolicited e-mails a week, and college students still lived and breathed the Dewey decimal system.

Card catalogs today seem like a relic from a century ago, not just a decade ago. While dial-up internet and poor cell service still characterize many rural communities, the trends in internet archiving and publishing have significantly improved the delivery of current research. Research by my own students today is more often done through laptops and high speed, wireless connections to vast digital libraries (often from a couch in a coffee shop!). While limited internet access still plagues many rural areas, my own field research in the distant corners of Africa and Latin America is more often than not facilitated by the internet. Quality control can be challenging, and the standards of peer review are as important as ever, but information access and literacy has rapidly changed the publishing landscape.

The majority of research journals today provide all content via the internet – some for free, others only to library or individual subscribers. Articles from widely cited journals such as Science or Nature to the most specialized journals are just a mouse click away. While most journals still publish a print version as well, the number of open access peer-reviewed web journals is growing rapidly. International collaborations such as the Public Knowledge Project (pkp.sfu.ca) and their free Open Journal Systems software have facilitated an explosion of web journal publication, with 1400 titles in 10 languages using this publishing platform alone. A recent estimate of peer-reviewed, open access journals puts the total at 3400, about 12% of the worldwide total of peer-reviewed journals, and about two thirds of non-open access journals allow their authors to deposit their manuscripts in open access repositories.[1]

Web journals are more than just online archives. They need not be static, one-way dialogues between writer and reader. Interactive reader commentary is often facilitated, weekly web logs (blogs) from editors and authors is becoming the norm, and the domain of who’s voice is publishable is broadening beyond just the credentialed expert community. Peer-reviewed wiki sites such as the Encyclopedia of Earth (www.eoearth.org) encourage submission of edits, reviews, and boxed insets to previously published work, in addition to publication of web books and articles.

And so, as I hinted at in my last prerogative, AJES will begin experimenting with a web version. The first step has been to create an Adirondack Research Consortium blog (found at adkresearch.blogspot.com), where invited blog authors will post regular research notes, ARC conference and business updates, and other news relevant to the Adirondack research community. Anyone and everyone can read and comment on postings. Over the coming months we’ll begin to put this issue of AJES online, experiment with layout and features, and prepare for future online issues (along with our print issue). The plan is to join the growing community of scholarship under the Public Knowledge Project, with the journal Ecology and Society (www.ecologyandsociety.org), one of the earliest peer-reviewed open access journals, serving as a model. Please be sure to browse www.ajes.org in the coming months, check out our progress, and get back to me with ideas and advice at jon.erickson@uvm.edu, or the old-fashioned way at 802-656-3328.

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[1] Suber, Peter, “The Opening of Science and Scholarship,” Publius Project, June 4, 2008 [accessed on August 10, 2008, publius.cc/page/2/].

AJES Summer Issue in press

The summer issue of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies (Volume 15, Number 1) went to press this week. Highlights include an interview with Dr. Ross Whaley on sustainable development in the Adirondacks, and peer-reviewed articles on Adirondack ecosystem modeling and creating genuine progress indicators in the Northern Forest.

CONTENTS
President's Message
by William F. Porter

Prerogative
Public Knowledge, Open Access
by Jon D. Erickson

Book Review
Acid Rain in the Adirondacks by Jenkins et al.
by James C. White

Commentary
A New Deal for the Adirondacks: Establishing an Adirondack CCC Modeled Program
by Eric Bouchard

Feature
Is a Sustainable Adirondack Park a Pipe Dream? An interview with Dr. Ross Whaley
by Graham L. Cox

Analyses
Development of an Adirondack Ecosystem Model
by Stephen Signell, Benjamin Zuckerberg, Stacy McNulty, and William Porter

The Genuine Progress Indicator: A New Measure of Economic Development for the Northern Forest
by Kenneth J. Bagstad and Marta Ceroni

For more information on AJES, past issues, or to subscribe to the print edition, please visit www.ajes.org.

Next steps for Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies

[The following editorial was published in the most recent issue of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2008]

Big Shoes, Next Steps

Jon D. Erickson

It was with appreciation and humility that I recently agreed to take on the role of executive editor of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies. So many people from so many walks of life in the Adirondack region owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Gary Chilson for founding AJES, staying true to its search for common ground, and promoting dialogue around sustainable development through the window of the Adirondack experience. These are big shoes to fill, but ones I humbly accept because so much has been accomplished in the 15 short years since the creation of the Adirondack Research Consortium and its publication AJES, but also because so much more lays ahead.

The first issue of AJES in 1994 was published on the heels of turbulent political times in the Adirondacks. The journal and the research consortium helped to fill a void between entrenched positions along the preservation/development continuum by providing a neutral ground of sorts – shrouded in at least the spirit of academic objectivity – to share ideas and produce a body of research both emerging from and accountable to the region. The hope has been to publish both contemporary debates and peer-reviewed analysis across a broad range of issues and disciplines in a voice approachable by an audience larger than just typical academic circles. I’ve been fortunate to work with many people in the intervening years involved in planning and participating in annual conferences, writing and reviewing AJES articles, and building bridges between information producers and consumers. We’ve connected some dots, but much of the borderlands between discipline and perspective remain unexplored.

The opportunity nearly 15 years later is to continue to promote an arena for ground-truthing and fact-checking, aided by open minds and informed dialogue. AJES seeks to explore the nexus of environmental, social, and economic issues, and as such demands a transdisciplinary and participatory approach to inquiry. The world has problems but the academy has disciplines. More often than not they don’t overlap. The study of the Adirondack region, the larger Northern Forest, and similar biomes across the world requires an approach that transcends disciplinary boundaries and pushes for unified descriptions of human-dominated ecosystems from which management recommendations can emerge. And broad participation must not come only from credentialed expertise, but from all layers of society … citizen, scientist, and manager alike. As communities worldwide search for examples of genuine development – where economic activity doesn’t erode the very environmental foundation that makes life possible and worthwhile – the time is upon us to further open the lines of communication between the study of our means and the vocalization of our ends.

AJES can be that vehicle. We can hold on to the values and virtues of peer-review, while providing a forum for debate, shared understanding, and resolution. We can continue to merge disciplines through the study of place. We can extend the circle of those who speak with authority beyond academics speaking with other academics. And we can aide an ongoing, bottom-up process of visioning management objectives and clarifying decision alternatives.

But AJES can’t reach its full potential in print form, mailed to a fluctuating base of subscribers and publishing commentary and peer-reviewed analysis with a 6 to 12 month lag time. North Country communities are being pulled into the age of the internet (perhaps unwillingly for some), and so can AJES. The world of open-source learning is upon us, enabling faster review and publishing times, extending peer review to a broader group, extending avenues for commentary and feedback through web logged discussion, and creating active readers that can better shape research questions and target research results.

Gary Chilson (and too many colleagues to name) has built a foundation of disciplinary inclusion and broad perspective during the formative years of AJES and the Adirondack Research Consortium. The business of connecting information producers and consumers in real-time should be the next big step for AJES. In another 15 years time, let’s look back on the second generation of AJES with pride in having expanded the common ground still further. As we begin to plan for the next volume of AJES, I’d love to hear your thoughts about a move to an internet platform. I can be reached at jon.erickson@uvm.edu, or the old-fashioned way at 802-656-3328.