'NOT EVEN CLOSE': SECRET EMAILS REVEAL NY WON'T MEET LAND PROTECT GOALS BY 2030

30 BY 30 LAW REQUIRES NEW YORK PROTECT 30% OF ITS LAND BY 2030

A great deal of the Catskill mountains in New York are protected by the State’s Forest Preserve, shown here. Under the State’s 30 By 30 Act signed into law last December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York is legally required to protect 30% of its open space by 2030. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.

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A coalition of New York's leading environmental groups warned state officials in May a "land acquisition backlog" prevents it from protecting 30% of the state's open or "green" space by 2030—as required by the 30 By 30 Act made law last December.

"To achieve its '30 x 30' targets," the groups wrote in a March 15, 2023 email, "the state and its land trust partners together will have to conserve and protect approximately 225,000 acres per year over the next eight years." 

"However," the email cautioned, "it is clear that we are not even close to attaining this pace." Instead, "we are being stymied by a process" that was "developed years ago" and is now "out of step with modern transaction practices." 

The email also revealed the backlog is currently forcing the groups to hold 96,000 acres of land and water worth a total of $154 million.

"Many of these lands have been held for several years while they await transfer to the state," they said.

Leaders from the Open Space Institute, the Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy/NY, Scenic Hudson, the Conservation Fund and the Finger Lakes Land Trust signed and sent the email to state officials. Together, they wrote, they represent "ninety land trust organizations that assist the state in conserving New York’s open space."

These groups act as New York's land acquisition surrogates. They have the ability to buy and prevent development of land faster than the state’s existing land acquisition bureaucracy. It can take years, even decades, for the governor and state legislative leaders to appropriate the required cash. 

The email was sent to Basil Seggos, Commissioner of the agency responsible for protecting New York's land and waters, the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC. DEC is in charge of developing a plan to buy enough land or conservation easements to satisfy the requirements of the 30 By 30 law. It has until July 1, 2024 to finalize the plan, under the law. Nothing prevents them from acting sooner.

New York has a total of 31,369,853 million acres of land and inland waters. To preserve 30%, about 9.4 million acres need to be protected from development. More than 6 million acres, or about 20%, are already protected in some way—thanks largely to New York's 3 million acre Forest Preserve. 

According to the land trusts' March 15 email to Seggos, 1.8 million acres of land need to be protected to satisfy the 30 By 30 law.

A November report by Protect The Adirondacks! fixed that figure at almost 3.2 million acres. Unlike the other environmental groups, PROTECT does not work directly with DEC to acquire lands.  PROTECT is a watchdog organization known for successfully suing DEC for violating the State Constitution's Forever Wild Clause after DEC constructed new, roadlike snowmobile trails through the Forest Preserve.   

The DEC did not respond to emailed questions from The Free Lance, including one that asked if it had yet determined how much land needed to be acquired to satisfy the 30 By 30 law.  Even assuming the lower figure used by the land trusts of 1.8 million acres is correct, that's still a mammoth task for an agency that typically acquires less than 10,000 acres a year, as its land acquisition records show.

The land trust groups rarely criticize the DEC directly because they work so closely together it would be like criticizing itself. That's why their March 15 email, stating their concerns in writing, is such a pointed protest. It was not publicized by the groups who sent it or published on their social media accounts.

The email and others were obtained from the DEC pursuant to a Freedom of Information Law request. They are revealed here for the first time.

The emails confirm a December 14 Free Lance report that the mission of the 30 By 30 law is in danger of failing because Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration of which the DEC is a part still doesn't have a plan for implementing it and lawmakers still haven't appropriated the billions of dollars required to fund it. 

Given the 30 By 30 law's aggressive mandate, the environmental groups wrote Seggos in March that now was a "particularly crucial time" to "accelerate the pace of state land acquisitions." To get things moving, they proposed a face-to-face meeting "to collectively explore solutions."

Seggos and DEC agreed to a sit-down and met with representatives from the environmental groups in Albany on May 25, two other emails show.

"The NYS land trust community sees itself as partners with DEC and we are looking to find ways to streamline the state land acquisition process," Kathy Moser, one of the meeting's organizers and Chief Conservation Officer at the Open Space Institute, wrote in a May 23 email confirming the meeting.

After the hour-long meeting, the environment groups summarized it in a third email sent to Commissioner Seggos dated June 1. They noted "the great news that the Real Property Bureau has six new critical fills, and that DEC Executive Staff are ready to roll up their sleeves to improve acquisition procedures."

When it came to specifics, the DEC agreed to establish a working group with the land trusts to identify "land acquisition efficiencies and determining how to apply those to DEC’s process." 

In addition to streamlining DEC's bureaucracy, they agreed to work together to identify "regional land protection priorities"  and "discussed having a meeting" with DEC regional directors "to emphasize the importance of land protection and get their input on important parcels/habitats."

Siobhan Gallagher Kent, Director of Communications for one of the groups that sent the email, the Open Space Institute, confirmed the meeting happened and wrote "Things are progressing smoothly."

But she also said DEC has only purchased 261 acres from OSI in the six months since the May meeting.

None of the leaders of the other environmental groups who sent the joint email responded to an emailed invitation to comment.

Also missing-in-action are Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie. The Free Lance asked their spokespersons last week and again on Wednesday whether they support budgeting more money or a new bond act to fund the scale of land acquisition required to meet the 30 By 30 law’s 2030 deadline. None responded.

Peter Bauer, Protect the Adirondacks! Executive Director, said the DEC's words mean little. Its up to Gov. Hochul to budget the cash required to fund the 30 By 30 law’s land protection mandate.

"Whatever the DEC says about its internal changes or goals will be ground-truthed in the Governor’s budget next month," he said. "At that point we’ll see exactly where 30 By 30 and land protection stands for the Governor and DEC."

“We’ve seen no indication,” Bauer added, DEC’s leaders are “making land protection a top priority."

New York’s Forest Preserve protects about 3 million acres of the state’s wildest lands, including its tallest mountains in the Catskills and Adirondacks. The 30 By 30 law requires it to protect 30% of all its land by 2030. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.

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