Outdoor Industry Group Supports Southern Gunks Greenway

April 23, 2012: The Conservation Partnership announces a $27,000 grant to the Trail Conference for the Gunks Greenway project.

April 4, 2012, MAHWAH, NJ: The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a $35,000 grant from the Conservation Alliance (CA) to support the work of completing the Southern Gunks Greenway in New York. The grant was one of 19 announced on April 3, 2012, by the Conservation Alliance, a national group of outdoor industry companies that makes grants to community-based campaigns to protect threatened wild habitat, preferably where outdoor enthusiasts recreate.

The Southern Gunks Greenway is an ongoing Trail Conference campaign that combines advocacy and land acquisition to complete an unbroken greenway linking the Catskill Forest Preserve in New York and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey/Pennsylvania. These are the two largest conserved areas in the nation’s most densely populated region.

The Southern Gunks is a portion of the Shawangunk Ridge, a geologic feature that stretches hundreds of miles across five states with a protected ridge-top except in the Southern Gunks. This unique greenway is an important ecological and recreational resource. Within the greenway, the 40-mile Shawangunk Ridge Trail has been a Trail Conference work-in-progress for decades, aiming to connect  High Point State Park in New Jersey and Minnewaska State Park in New York. Sections of the trail cross land that remains unprotected.

The Trail Conference aims to build popular support for completing the Southern Gunks Greenway.  The advocacy will concentrate on both grass roots constituents and key decision makers to secure municipal resolutions of support and, ultimately, expansion of the Huckleberry State Forest through the acquisition and transfer of lands to New York State. 

Since 1920, the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference has partnered with parks to create, protect, and promote a network of 1,800 miles of public trails in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan region. We offer volunteer opportunities for people who love the outdoors.

Visit conservationalliance.com to learn more about the Conservation Alliance.