— Matt Cook

Leaders of an organization that has played a key role in preserving the natural landmarks of Albany County plan to do the same in other parts of the area.

The Albany County Land Conservancy officially changed its name last week to the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy. The new name reflects the organization’s expansion into Schenectady and Montgomery counties, with a focus on the Mohawk River Valley.

Dan Driscoll, of Knox, president of the conservancy’s board of directors, told The Enterprise that the conservancy, which obtains land and property rights to protect wild areas, already owned one preserve in Montgomery County, the Scoharie Creek Preserve, which, at 198 acres, is one of the largest properties the conservancy controls.

Also, a report from the Open Space Institute in February identified the Wolf Hollow area in Schenectady County as one of the high-priority open space areas in the Capital Region. The hollow is a scenic ravine in western Glenville.
"We started getting a lot of interest in that area," Driscoll said, "It’s an area that wasn’t served very well by other land trusts."

With interests outside of the county, Driscoll said, it quickly became apparent to the conservancy that the old name wouldn’t do. Besides, he said, since the group was founded in 1992, its members have talked about changing the name so it wasn’t confused with a government agency.

The land conservancy is a not-for-profit organization. Most of its preserves are of land donated to the conservancy by private citizens, other nature organizations, companies, and the county. The conservancy also holds developement rights for Indian Ladder Farms, a popular orchard and nature spot in New Scotland.

In Albany County, much of the conservancy’s efforts have gone towards preserving the Helderberg escarpment, the county’s most prominent natural feature, Driscoll said.

Driscoll, who co-edited the Helderberg Escarpment Planning Guide, said the escarpment is worth protecting for a number of reasons. Among other things, he said, it’s one of the largest sources of fossils from the Devonian Era in the country, and Thacher Park, in New Scotland and Knox, is the most popular park in the county.
"It’s a backdrop for the city of Albany," Driscoll said.

Besides the Helderbergs, the conservancy has also been very active in Bethlehem, and it hopes to create a triangular corridor of wild lands linking its preserves there with the town park on Elm Avenue and the state’s Five Rivers Environmental Education Center.

With its newly expanded focus, the conservancy will treat the Mohawk River Valley like it does the Helderberg escarpment.

The Mohawk River is one of the major sources of water for the Hudson, Driscoll said.
"It’s also a very scenic area," Driscoll said, citing as an example the Noses in Montgomery County, a site where two steep hills dip into the river. "There are scenic spots all along the Mohawk that are like that," Driscoll said.

The Mohawk Valley is also archeologically and historically significant. Former American Indian settlements dot the river’s shoreline, Driscoll said.

Many historical figures have gone up and down the river, like Charles Proteus Steinmetz, an electrical engineer and inventor who studied the effect of a lightning strike on a mirror in a Mohawk Valley cabin. The conservancy now owns a cabin Steinmetz used to own, Driscoll said, though he’s not sure it’s the same one where the lightning struck.
"That’s another mission for us, to preserve historical things," he said.

With the change of name comes organizational changes for the conservancy. At this point, Driscoll said, the all-volunteer staff is just big enough to run the 14 properties the conservancy controls, most of which are open to the public. With the help of a grant from the Land Trust Alliance, the conservancy will be hiring an executive director and a part-time assistant.

The staff will work at an old schoolhouse in Feura Bush that the New York State Department of Transportation donated to the conservancy.
On the volunteer side, the conservancy is looking to increase its membership by 100 in the next five years. Right now, it has 260 members. To do that, it has begun a series of in-home meetings called "Gatherings" to introduce the group to non-members. There were five Gatherings in 2004, which helped increase membership 22 percent in that year.

Driscoll cited a book called The Rise of the Creative Class, by Richard Florida. The book tracks the emergence of people who work in creative fields, like scientists, engineers, entertainers, and teachers.
"As it turns out, Albany ranks very high as a place for creative people," Driscoll said. "The land conservancy will help the Mohawk-Hudson area become even more attractive to creative people. There’s still quite a bit of open space."