Orange County Land Trust honors state parks chief Kathy Moser

At City Winery Hudson Valley in Montgomery, the Orange County Land Trust turned its annual benefit reception into a reminder of what conservation looks like on the ground: more public land, more trail access and more places close to home where Orange County residents can hike, bird and learn outdoors. The June 4 event, held from 6 to 9 p.m., carried the theme A Celebration of Parks, Trails, and the Places That Connect Us and honored Kathy Moser, the state parks chief now serving as acting commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Rep. Pat Ryan’s team attended the reception, which the land trust framed as support for its conservation work in Orange County and across the Hudson Valley. The organization said Moser has brought more than three decades of conservation leadership to the job and has made the case that parks and public lands are not just places to visit, but ecological assets that also support wellness and connection. Moser was nominated by Gov. Kathy Hochul in September 2025.

Before taking over state parks, Moser was chief conservation and policy officer at the Open Space Institute, where she directed parks, stewardship and government relations. Before that, she served as deputy commissioner for natural resources at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation from December 2011 through August 2019. Her background matters in a county where open space, park access and watershed protection shape how people move, recreate and spend time outdoors.

The scale of the state system gives that work a wider reach. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation says it manages more than 250 state parks and historic sites, welcomes over 86 million visitors each year and employs about 2,400 full-time staff and more than 5,000 seasonal workers. Decisions made in Albany ripple outward into the region’s trails, historic sites and recreation corridors.

Locally, the Orange County Land Trust said it has helped protect more than 8,000 acres through conservation agreements, property donations and acquisitions. It now monitors 13 nature preserves and 31 properties with conservation agreements, and it said many of those places are open to the public and support hiking, birding and educational programs. For Orange County, that means the land trust’s work is not abstract. It is the difference between land that stays open and land that disappears from the map.