Conservation Alliance Releases Third Video in worthWILD Series

Bend, Ore. (December 19, 2012) —The Conservation Alliance (CA) has just released Allegany, its third video in the worthWILD series, that tells the story of the Adirondack Mountain Club’s successful campaign to protect New York’s Alleghany State Park from oil drilling, and related habitat destruction, landscape alteration, and ground and surface water contamination.

The Adirondack Mountain Club, a New York State organization dedicated to the protection and responsible use of wild lands and waters, was unwilling to accept energy development in a popular state park. The club organized and then amplified the voices of people who love Allegany State Park. The film illustrates how these collective voices came together to convince the State of New York State to designate roughly 85-percent of the 65,000-acre park as Park Preservation Area.

“The Conservation Alliance grant made possible our advocacy work in Allegany State Park, New York’s largest and wildest state park,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director and lawyer for the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). “As a result, the Adirondack Mountain Club was able to persuade the state to designate 84-percent of the park as park preservation areas, which must be managed as wilderness, free from the threat of new roads and natural gas wellpads. ADK was also able to win passage of new state laws that extinguish abandoned gas rights in the park and establish a strict environmental review process for any proposed gas drilling that would affect Allegany State Park,” Woodworth explained.

The Conservation Alliance has made grants to Adirondack Mountain Club since 1993. The Alliance funded ADK’s Save Allegany State Park Campaign in 2010 and 2011. The goal of the successful campaign was to secure the highest level of environmental and resource protection for Allegany State Park and New York State Forests.

“It’s amazing that oil and gas development threatened one of New York’s state parks,” said John Sterling, Executive Director of The Conservation Alliance. “We’re proud to have supported ADK’s successful effort to stop that from happening.”

Produced by Alexandria Bombach’s Red Reel Video, the Allegany ‘worthWILD’ video is the third of four documentaries that the Conservation Alliance is rolling out over the course of a few months.

Watch the worthWILD-Allegany video here. For more information about the Adirondack Mountain Club, visit www.adk.org. For more information about the Conservation Alliance, visit www.conservationalliance.com.

About the Conservation Alliance:
The Conservation Alliance is an organization of outdoor businesses whose collective contributions support grassroots environmental organizations and their efforts to protect wild places where outdoor enthusiasts recreate. Alliance funds have played a key role in protecting rivers, trails, wildlands and climbing areas.

Membership in the Alliance is open to companies representing all aspects of the outdoor industry, including manufacturers, retailers, publishers, mills and sales representatives. The result is a diverse group of businesses whose livelihood depends on protecting our natural environment.

Since its inception in 1989, the Alliance has contributed $11.2 million to grassroots conservation groups. Alliance funding has helped save more than 29 million acres of wildlands; protect 2,700 miles of rivers; stop or remove 25 dams; designate five marine reserves; and purchase nine climbing areas.

For complete information on the Conservation Alliance, see www.conservationalliance.com.