POTSDAM -- Conservation groups met in Potsdam last month to discuss the Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative (A2A) conservation corridor.

A forest corridor connecting New York State's Adirondack Park and Ontario's Algonquin Park is mostly intact, but fragmented due to roads and development on both side of the border -- particularly in the St. Lawrence Valley.

Because Potsdam is within the A2A region, Clarkson University's Institute for a Sustainable Environment and the Department of Biology partnered with the St. Lawrence Land Trust to host a meeting of conservation practitioners on the United States side of the corridor.

Representatives from A2A Collaborative, Thousand Islands Land Trust, St. Lawrence Land Trust, St. Lawrence University, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Potsdam, The Nature Conservancy, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Audubon New York, Indian Creek Nature Center, Wildlands Network, as well as community conservation practitioners, gathered in February to discuss the information needs, priorities and strategies that can be pursued to maintain biological connectivity across the region.

A2A says maintaining and enhancing the connection between these ecologically critical areas requires measures to legally conserve existing green space, create riparian buffers -- or vegetated areas -- along the watersheds, encourage reforestation, and construct some bridges and tunnels to allow wildlife to cross larger highways safely.

The project aims to strengthen the biological diversity and resiliency of the Adirondack Park, Algonquin Park and the boreal forest beyond by preserving a corridor for animal movement, for plant and animal genetic interchange, and for species to spread north as the climate warms in the coming century.