## Facts

- The New York Legislature enacted Laws 1929, ch. 417 authorizing the State Conservation Commissioner to construct and maintain a bobsleigh run on Adirondack Forest Preserve land in the Town of North Elba for the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games.
- The proposed run was approximately 1¼ miles long and 6½ feet wide, with a return road; required clearing made the course about 16 feet wide and about 20 feet at curves.
- Construction would require removal of trees from about 4½ acres, estimated at roughly 2,500 trees.
- The affected land was part of the State Forest Preserve, constitutionally required to be “forever kept as wild forest lands,” and providing that timber on the Preserve shall not be “sold, removed or destroyed.”
- Conservation organizations sued state officials in their official capacities to enjoin construction as unconstitutional.
- The trial court declared the statute unconstitutional and enjoined the project; the Appellate Division affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute authorizing construction of a bobsleigh run on Forest Preserve land, requiring removal of approximately 2,500 trees, violates New York’s “forever wild” constitutional provision prohibiting timber on the Preserve from being “sold, removed or destroyed.”
2. Whether asserted public benefits (recreation, health, and an international sporting event) permit an implied exception to the constitutional restriction.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed.
- Laws 1929, ch. 417 was unconstitutional insofar as it authorized the bobsleigh run on Forest Preserve lands.
- The state officials were properly permanently enjoined from constructing and maintaining the run on those lands.
- The court treated the constitutional text as controlling and rejected a policy-based balancing of benefits against the prohibition on timber removal.

## Legal Principles

- The constitutional command that Forest Preserve lands be “forever kept as wild forest lands,” coupled with the prohibition that timber shall not be “sold, removed or destroyed,” bars legislative authorization of projects that require purposeful destruction or removal of timber on Preserve lands.
- Legislative power over public lands is limited by explicit constitutional restrictions; public interest and recreational objectives cannot override a clear constitutional prohibition.
- No de minimis exception applies where a project entails substantial tree cutting for a constructed facility; the inquiry turns on whether the project requires prohibited removal or destruction of timber, not on the Preserve’s overall size.

## Conclusion

The court held that New York’s “forever wild” constitutional protection for the Adirondack Forest Preserve forbids legislative authorization of major recreational construction that requires cutting and destroying timber, even when the project is small relative to the Preserve and claimed to serve significant public benefits.


Ass’n for the Prot. of the Adirondacks v. MacDonald, 253 N.Y. 234 (1930)