To the Editor:

Given the approach of another Adirondack hunting season, our @LivingLightlyonEarth Group believes that many of your readers will find this Letter to be an encouragement in their efforts to live in harmony with their fellow living things.

Here's An Autumn Opinion Piece. Here we are several days past another Autumn Equinox. An Autumn Season of Change is well underway.

We all love the Fall's Colored Leaf Season. Treetops and Mountain-Sides are becoming ever so colorful. Colored Leaves falling. First Nations Friends have long called Autumn..... "Fall of the Leaf."

In a respectful and good- intentioned spirit of Earth protection, revering the lives of our fellow living things. Our Living Lightly on Earth Group is advocating for An Adirondack ECO Sanctuary to be established and set aside and protected as "Forever Wild" in the High Peaks Wilderness Area of the State's Adirondack Park.

As the Fall Season advances, hunting seasons are coming along. Before getting into the purpose of An ECO Sanctuary, let's be clear that our group is not anti-hunting .... Our Group is not an anti-gun group 

Both my twin brother, Don Hassig, and I grew up on a farm, visiting the mountains, deer hunting with our father, Old Doc Hassig, RIP. Such was our youthful initiation into life as Adirondackers.

Now that Readers' questions about our Group have hopefully been cleared up.... Onwards.

Now, for outlining our reasoning in advocating for An Adirondack ECO Sanctuary. We believe that most of you will agree that a sense of reverence for nature and the mountains is akin to what one feels in visiting a shrine … a church.

We ask you? "Does the sound of gunshots detract from A Sense of Reverence?" Does not the sight of dead deer on vehicles in parking lots detract from our sense of reverence for nature and for the lives of our fellow living things?"

Here at Living Lightly on Earth, our belief is that most of you appreciate the spiritual and ethical benefits to our society from revering the Earth.

By designating the Adirondack Park's High Peaks Wilderness Area as an ECO Sanctuary, by setting these public lands aside from the State's other public lands where hunting and trapping are allowed, NYSDEC would go far towards encouraging love and respect for our home here on our Earth, Mother's Living Green Planet.

Dave Cree Hassig
Colton