Photos from a visit to the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, a rare inland pine barrens in upstate New York. The Pine Bush is a sandy, hilly area with various pine and scrub habitats, and is home to a number of endangered or rare species of plants and animals. The area is especially interesting for being a fire-maintained ecology, and regular controlled burns are performed to safely replace the natural forest fires that the native plants depend on for clearing out fast-growing competitors and enriching the soil with mineral-rich ash.
The Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission's primary goal is protecting the Pine Bush from development, which has already destroyed much of the habitat and fragmented the rest.