Introducing the Allegany Wildlands: Virtual Program (Adult+)
Part of Allegany Nature Pilgrimage – Pilgrimage Beyond the Park
Saturday, June 5, 2021
2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
$8 Adults
$6 Nature Center members
$6 Children 3 – 15; free 2 and under
Paid reservations required by Thursday, June 3, 2021.
The Allegany Wildlands is located within a portion of the Allegheny Plateau that was never covered by the glaciers in the last ice age, making it an extremely rare landscape in New York State. The forest’s rich soils weren’t scoured by glaciers, and they support a diverse plant community that includes rare orchids, a threatened fern, and several surviving American Chestnut trees that provide hope for the future of this threatened species.
This remarkable landscape — a 200-acre privately-owned forest near Allegany State Park — is threatened, and the Land Conservancy is working with the community to raise $879,000 by the end of this year to protect it and open it to the public. Part of a large tract of forest, it forms a perfect corridor of connectivity with Pennsylvania's vast forests to the south. Some of our region's most iconic mammals, such as black bears, bobcats, porcupines, and fishers all likely roam here.
It is also part of a globally significant Important Bird Area — a designation it shares with the Everglades, the Galapagos, and our own Niagara River — because of its abundant nesting warblers and other songbirds.
Join the Land Conservancy's Deputy Executive Director, Jajean Rose-Burney, for a virtual tour of this magnificent forest. If the Land Conservancy can reach their fundraising goal by the end of this year and protect the Allegany Wildlands, it will become part of the Western New York Wildway, a proposed system of protected wildlife habitat connecting Pennsylvania's forests to the Great Lakes, the Finger Lakes, and beyond.
Jajean Rose-Burney was born and raised in Western New York. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental design and a master’s degree in urban planning, both from the University at Buffalo (UB). After graduating in 2007, he worked at the Urban Design Project, a research center at UB, on several local planning efforts, environmental coalition building, and non-profit development. As a graduate student, Jajean studied in the Sustainable Futures program in Costa Rica, and taught in the same program while working for the Urban Design Project. From 2010 to 2012 he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer stationed with Mexico’s federal environmental agency in Puebla, a large city in southern Mexico, along with his wife Ana. There, he helped protect a large wetland from rapid and unplanned urban development, a project that led to an international Ramsar Site designation for the wetland and a new state park. This project won the 2013 International Planning Award from the American Planning Association (APA). Jajean has written numerous articles and books on environmental topics, leads bird and nature tours, and has worked with several environmental organizations.
Special Information:
COVID-19 Information: Face coverings are required for all participants ages 3 and up for indoor programs; they are also required for outdoor programs during which participants cannot maintain 6 feet of distance between family groups. Please have a face covering available should situations change. If you are feeling ill, have any symptoms of COVID-19, or have come into contact with a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, please stay home. Please be aware that if Audubon discovers that a program instructor or participant tests positive or is considered presumptive positive for COVID-19, they may use registration information to assist with contact tracing.
