Citizens can effect change.

One of those citizens is Lynne Jackson. Her lifetime of passion for the Pine Bush has made a difference.

The pine barrens once covered more than 40 square miles and were, from the time European settlers first arrived in North America, considered desolate and dangerous to traverse.

In the 20th Century, the pine barrens were thought of as a wasteland, a place where development would be a boon. The Thruway cut across the pine bush in the 1950s followed by the building of the huge Harriman state office campus and the uptown University at Albany campus.

Mayor Erastus Corning II pushed through the Washington Avenue Extension with the intent of massive development in the Pine Bush. Also in the 1960s, the city of Albany placed its landfill, used regionally, in the Pine Bush, expanding it several times. The Northway Mall in Colonie and Crossgates Mall in Guilderland were later built in the Pine Bush.

What has changed in the last half century is that wasteland, once thought of as ripe for development, is now largely regarded as a treasure to be preserved — an environmental and cultural asset to the region, with a swath protected through state legislation and frequently described as a globally rare ecosystem.

Hikers flock to its trails and visitors to its Discovery Center where they are educated about the beauty and the fragility of the ecosystem.

What wrought this change?

Jackson is quick to say the preservation is not due to her — “I’m just the one with the big mouth,” she says — but rather to a small group of dedicated people who fought long and hard for preserving the Pine Bush.

She feels it is a common misconception that the government preserved the Pine Bush but Jackson gives a firsthand account of the “rag-tag bunch of people fighting the powerful government and institutions to save a unique ecosystem.”

Many of the founding members of Save the Pine Bush have died but, Jackson says, “There’s a whole new bunch of people that are really involved.”

Since our democracy is a government of the people, her account provides a useful lesson on how messy democracy can be. Jackson’s story is one of citizens pushing for preservation, sometimes suing the government, so that, ultimately, preservation was embraced by the government.

Jackson, who grew up 70 years ago in suburban Endicott, New York recalls as a little kid watching the water in her family’s washing machine and thinking, as it drained, “I’m glad I don’t live downstream from this.”

This was an era, in the 1960s, when the polluted Cuyahoga River bisecting Cleveland caught on fire, becoming a symbol of the dangers of pollution and of the need for environmental protections.

When Jackson arrived as a student at the State University of New York at Albany, she said, “I found my people because I found the Environmental Forum at SUNY.”

She met the late John Wolcott whom she described as a “historian, preservationist, activist, and fierce advocate for the Pine Bush.”

She greatly admired the late Louis Ismay, the coordinator of the Environmental Forum. “As a professor, Lou Ismay was absolutely amazing,” said Jackson.

She warmly recalled the Wednesday night forum gatherings held in the late Ed Cowley’s art studio at the university. “We used to joke and say, ‘Fixing the environment is more of an art than science.’”

Ismay invited a wide range of speakers to the forum, from the late state wildlife pathologist Ward Stone to national reformer Ralph Nader. Jackson described the way Ismay would fashion a file folder into a tent-like structure and carefully letter each speaker’s name on the folder as a nameplate.

Then, each of the tents bearing names were hung from the ceiling of the art studio.

“His office was open 24 hours a day; things were looser back then,” said Jackson. “We just hung out there all the time. We did projects and we went on adventures to the Pine Bush from that office.”

One of her most vivid memories is of a Feb. 6, 1978 meeting at the old Larkin restaurant in Albany where Ismay and students concerned about the environment gathered in the midst of “a huge, huge snowstorm” before a city planning board hearing involving a proposed housing development in the Pine Bush.

“There was no internet then,” recalled Ms. Jackson. “We all walked to the Albany Public Library where the hearing was held. The hearing was adjourned to a private bank boardroom. The public was not invited. We were so mad, we started Save the Pine Bush.”

The fledgling group hired lawyer Victor Lord “because he fought the Corning-O’Connell Democratic machine,” said Jackson, and won a new hearing held in July of that year.

Over 200 people showed up to speak against the development and a second hearing had to be scheduled. “It was wonderful,” said Jackson.

Nevertheless, the city’s planning board approved the development. Save the Pine Bush then hired Dennis Kaufman to fight the development based on the fact a required bond had not been posted for sewer and water lines.

“We won that case on the merits, but it was moot because the developer built while it was in court,” Jackson said of the Dunes development of single-family houses.

Although the State Environmental Quality Review, which requires local, regional, and state government agencies to examine the environmental impacts as well as the social and economic impacts of a proposed project, had been passed  in 1975, it was only gradually put into effect, said Jackson.

“We were so unpopular,” said Jackson, since Save the Pine Bush was perceived as standing in the way of progress. “People would say to us, ‘You’re suing over sewer” or … people would say, ‘Why do you care about the Pine Bush?’ People would dump garbage in the Pine Bush. They would abandon vehicles in the Pine Bush. The Pine Bush in the ’70s was very overgrown.”

When she got discouraged with the criticism, Johnson would listen to her friend Wolcott. “He really cared about the flowers and the plants and the animals in this beautiful ecosystem,” she said. “He was always the one to advocate that we should do anything to stop development in the Pine Bush, that we should save it because this is a beautiful, gorgeous resource.”

The group found a stalwart ally in lawyer Lewis Oliver who spearheaded the rest of the suits brought by Save the Pine Bush. “He’s done so much good for the Pine Bush; I’m deeply grateful,” said Jackson.

“We stopped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of houses from being built out there,” she said. “Just huge developments we stopped. And I think, if we hadn’t done what we did, that there’d be no commission, there’d be no good plan from the commission, there’d be no Pine Bush left today.”

She went on, “The commission was formed because we kept winning … At that point,” Jackson said of the 1988 legislation that created the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission, “the city thought we would go away — but we didn’t.”

The commission was charged with creating a plan to protect the Pine Bush but Oliver recommended suing since the plan did not provide strong protections, Jackson said.

The state attorney general’s office called Oliver to settle, and the agreement, based on an affidavit filed for Save the Pine Bush by Jerry Muller, was that the plan would evaluate parcels of land on what should be preserved.

“That was the first lawsuit we agreed to settle out of court,” said Jackson.

On the choice to use the legal system to effect change, Jackson said, while there were times members stood in front of bulldozers, “That meant it was too late if you’re going to be effective.”

The change in public attitude was gradual, Jackson said. “We kept getting together for monthly lasagna dinners and talking to classes,” she said. A speaker like Ward Stone would bring in a lot of people to the dinners, many of whom then took up the cause.

For nearly 40 years, the late Rezsin Adams made vegetarian lasagna dinners monthly for the group and its speakers. She ran off flyers on the mimeograph machine in her basement and she ran a Pine Bush day care, where she offered an informal day-care program for the children of activists, giving all of the proceeds to Save the Pine Bush.

Jackson noticed the change in attitude when, at the turn of the century, she was invited to speak to a class of kindergartners or first-graders. She had brought her maps of the Pine Bush and was speaking to the kids at their level, showing them the lands that had been preserved.

The children’s attitude was, “It’s so obvious this land should be saved,” said Jackson.

She also said, “The commission is doing a good job of managing the Pine Bush, containing invasive species. I think our lawsuits helped them along the way.”

As we listened to the saga Jackson detailed for us this week after writing a piece of it in a letter to the editor last week, on the land swap that created the Discovery Center, we were reminded of what the late folk singer and activist Pete Seeger told us decades ago.

We were talking to Seeger because we were writing about the Helderberg Anti-Rent wars. Seeger hummed the tune of “Ol’ Dan Tucker” to remember an Anti-Rent song and filled in the words that were written about “Big Bill Snyder,” the sheriff collecting rents who was shot by revolting farmers.

“One of the extraordinary parts of America, which usually is skipped or skimmed over in American history courses,” Seeger said, “is the way American history has been formed, not always by the presidents and the officials, but by the rank and file people who kept pushing.”

“The politician,” said Seeger, when he stopped singing, “can go only so far as the people will follow him.” About the Anti-Rent Wars, he went on, “So now here’s a case where the New York State Constitution needs some changing. And, how is it going to be changed?”

He answered himself, “If it hadn’t been for the agitation of these people, it probably wouldn’t have changed …. Because they put up a struggle, little by little, the word got around … it’s not right that people can farm their land for 100 years and not be allowed to buy it. They could have bought it 10 times over for the money they paid in rent.”

He also cited President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation as happening because of “thousands of unknown people who risked their lives .... like Elijah Lovejoy, who was lynched and killed because he was publishing an abolitionist newspaper.”

Lovejoy’s brother, related Seeger, wrote a letter to Lincoln, asking when he would sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln replied: “I can’t sign yet; you keep pushing.”

We are at a juncture in our democracy where citizens, to use Seeger words, need to keep pushing.

Lynne Jackson hasn’t finished pushing. She urges, “Local government has a lot of control.” She cited a friend, Tom Ellis, who persistently spoke to the Albany County Legislature about setting aside funds to buy land in the Pine Bush to preserve it.

“Lo and behold,” said Jackson, the legislature has set up a fund, which it adds to each year for land preservation in Albany County.

“People need to speak to their local government,” said Jackson, noting that includes Colonie and Guilderland as well as Albany since Pine Bush lands are located in all three municipalities.

“If we have a good idea or a good argument,” said Jackson, “we should tell them because maybe, if we work together, we can do good things.”