9-0501 – Power to Acquire Reforestation Areas; Prohibition Against Compensation or Gratuity.

§ 9-0501. Power  to  acquire  reforestation  areas;  prohibition against
          compensation or gratuity.
1. In order to provide for the acquisition of  lands  outside  of  the
  Adirondack park and the Catskill park as defined by subdivisions 1 and 2
  of   section  9-0101,  which  are  adapted  for  reforestation  and  the
  establishment  and  maintenance  thereon  of   forests   for   watershed
  protection,  the production of timber and other forest products, and for
  recreation and kindred purposes, the department may acquire in the  name
  of  the  state,  by gift, purchase or appropriation, reforestation areas
  which shall consist respectively of not less than five hundred acres  of
  contiguous lands, which shall be forever devoted to the planting, growth
  and harvesting of such trees as shall be deemed by the commissioner best
  suited  for  the  lands to be reforested. Lands divided only by highway,
  railroad, transmission line, telephone line, telegraph line,  pipe  line
  or  other  rights of way or only by canals or streams shall be deemed to
  be contiguous within the meaning of this section.  Plantations and other
  forests thereon shall be established, managed and  protected  under  his
  supervision  pursuant  to  such  provisions of law as shall from time to
  time be  established  or  to  such  rules  and  regulations  as  may  be
  prescribed by him.
2.  No  officer  or  any  other  person  acting  for the department in
  securing options for the purchase of lands acquired or  to  be  acquired
  under provisions of this title 5 shall directly or indirectly receive or
  accept from a vendor of lands acquired or to be acquired by the state as
  herein provided any commission, compensation or gratuity, and no town or
  county  officer  shall receive any compensation for services rendered to
  the department in connection with such acquisition.