Catskills

Image Credit: Bob Stone

America’s first wilderness

The Catskill Mountains is a land of pristine water, protected woods and working landscapes.

The area draws a million visitors each year who come from near and far to hike, swim, camp, bird-watch, rock-climb, canoe, fish or simply go for meandering drives through the hills as leaves show their autumn colors.

Beginning in the 1970s, we have been hard at work conserving land in the legendary Catskill Mountains. In the years since, we have protected more than 20,000 acres in the scenic Valley surrounding the Beaverkill River, one of the world’s best fly-fishing streams.

Protecting the ‘champagne of drinking water’

The Catskills’ importance extends well beyond its regional border: It is also the source of pure drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers.

This region delivers 1.4 billion gallons of water daily, mostly by gravity, from upstate mountaintops to New York City kitchen taps.

We are working to ensure that water, coming from the largest unfiltered surface water system in the world, remains pure and safe source of drinking water.

Our water is only as secure as the quality of the lands from which it is drawn.

Protecting our water

Our work in the Catskills includes:

acquiring more than 18,500 acres of scenic forest in the Beaverkill Valley—a place where OSI has been preserving open space for the last 40 years.
preserving more than 21,000 acres of forest lands in the Catskills--including over 300 acres in Overlook Mountain.