NEW SCOTLAND—A popular outdoor destination in New Scotland will be 10 percent larger after an acquisition.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced last Friday the upcoming purchase of 43 acres in New Scotland for Five Rivers Environmental Education Center. The Open Space Institute has worked out a deal to sell the land to the state for $113,000.
Five Rivers "has been an important preserve for the state for quite some time," said Joe Martens, president of the Open Space Institute. There are a number of parcels of land adjacent to Five Rivers that could be used for wildlife areas. "We’re adding another piece of the puzzle," Martens said.

The Open Space Institute purchased the land from the estate of the late Walt Miller and will now sell it to the DEC. It’s a typical move for the Open Space Institute, Martens said. The institute is a New York-based organization that works to permanently protect land from development.
"We’ve created brand-new state parks with our acquisitions," Martens said.

Martens said the institute has confidence in the state’s ability to preserve open space.
"In our experience, they do a very good job," he said. The state’s preservation efforts are most effective when it has a local volunteer organization backing it up, such as the Friends of Five Rivers, Martens said.

Five Rivers is one of five environmental education centers run by the DEC. The others are in Suffolk, Erie, Chenango, and Dutchess counties. Its 400 acres include wetlands, forests, and fields. There’s also an education building and 10 miles of trails used for hiking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.

In 1973, Miller gave Five Rivers an access easement on his property for the Vlomankill trail, which follows the Vlomankill creek. Now, the center will own the trail and the land around it, creating a buffer between hikers and private property, said Maureen Wren, a DEC spokesperson.

Twenty acres of the acquisition is grassland; the rest is forest, Wren said. The grassland was formerly a farm, she said.
"Grassland in general, throughout the state, is dwindling," Wren said. The DEC is trying to preserve it, she said.

In late 2006, Wren said, Five Rivers will be drafting a management plan for the preserve.
"We’ll be reaching out to the public for a lot of that," she said.