Earlier in February, I joined a team representing the Trail Conference, the Catskill Center, the Catskill Mountain Club and local outdoor retailer, Morgan Outdoors to visit with New York State Legislators who represented the greater Catskill Mountain region.  We were there to educate them on the importance of the Catskill Park as a recreational resource and as an economic driver for the region.  In addition, we impressed upon 6 key goals for the Park that we would like to see move forward.  Those goals included:

• Creating a new recreational plan for the park;
• Constructing the long-promised Catskill Interpretive Center;
• Encouraging and supporting the Department of Transportation to continue its signage program in the park;
• Promoting transfer of some New York City lands to the Forest Preserve;
• Pressing DEC to release a long-planned contract to increase volunteer efforts in the park; and
• Requiring individual permit review should future regulations allow hydrofracking within the park.

This was the first of what will hopefully become an annual event and in the future we hope to expand our outreach to more and more of the New York State Legislature.

The Trail Conference has a story about the day up on their blog.