NY DEC Lands

Live

New York DEC Lands — Forest Preserve (Adirondack + Catskill), State Forests, Wildlife Management Areas, plus 20 other land-use categories — via the NYSDEC public data services (agency data services). ~3,233 polygons covering all DEC-administered land in NY. No credentials required.

What is NY DEC Lands?

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Lands via the NYSDEC public data services (agency data services /, item id 84b4cce8a8974c31a1c5584540f3aaae). Single layer 0 layer with ~3,233 polygons covering every DEC-administered tract of state-trust land in NY, segmented by a CATEGORY column with 23 codedValues: FOREST PRESERVE 1,370 (Adirondack + Catskill Park, with 140 detached parcels coded FOR PRES DET PAR); STATE FOREST 817 (working state forests); WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 336 (WMAs — DEC's hunting/fishing lands); FISHING ACCESS 182; TIDAL WETLAND 101; WATERWAY ACCESS 87; UNIQUE AREA 76; MULTIPLE USE AREA 41; SPECIAL USE 32; ADMINISTRATIVE 17; EDUCATIONAL 8; TRAILWAY 7; FRESHWATER WETLAND 7; NRA (Natural Resource Area) 4; UNCLASSIFIED 3; SCENIC RESOURCE 2; SHORELINE PROTECTION 2; LEASED ACCESS 1; plus FLOWAGE RIGHTS, OPEN SPACE, RESTRICTED. Each polygon carries CATEGORY, FACILITY (the unit name), CLASS (single-character code), UMP (Unit Management Plan), REGION (DEC admin region 1-9), COUNTY, ACRES, URL (link to agency host page), UPDATED (epoch ms). DEC region distribution: 5=Adirondack 1,204 / 6=Black River-Mohawk 559 / 4=Capital 308 / 7=Central NY 315 / 3=Lower Hudson 246 / 1=Long Island 248 / 9=Western NY 163 / 8=Western Finger Lakes 161 / 2=NYC 29. §0 surprises: COUNTY values are UPPERCASE with periods (ST. LAWRENCE / ST. CLAIR not 'Saint Lawrence') — 62 distinct counties; handler matches case-insensitively. REGION is a SmallInteger 1-9 mapping to DEC's 9 administrative regions, NOT a string label. PUBLICUSE has only one value ('Y') for all 3,233 features — handler does not expose it as a filter.. NYS State Parks are administered by OPRHP (a separate agency) and are NOT in the DEC Lands layer — for state parks use a different connector (out of scope here). Last verified live 2026-05-08.

Available Tools

searchForestPreserve
NY Forest Preserve (Adirondack + Catskill, ~1,510 polygons). Filter county (UPPERCASE with periods e.g. 'WARREN' / 'ESSEX' / 'ULSTER' / 'ST. LAWRENCE'), region (DEC region 1-9; Adirondack=5, Catskill region=4 + 3), facility (unit name substring), minAcres, bbox, near. includeDetachedParcels=true by default adds 140 FOR PRES DET PAR polygons.
searchStateForests
NY State Forests (~817 working state forest polygons). Filter county, region (1-9), forestName, minAcres, bbox, near.
searchWildlifeManagementAreas
NY Wildlife Management Areas — DEC hunting/fishing lands (~336 polygons). Filter county, region, wmaName (e.g. 'Tonawanda' / 'Perch River'), minAcres, bbox.
searchAllDecLands
Generic search across all 23 CATEGORY codedValues (~3.2K polygons). Filter category (FOREST PRESERVE / STATE FOREST / WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT / TIDAL WETLAND / FRESHWATER WETLAND / MULTIPLE USE AREA / UNIQUE AREA / TRAILWAY / SCENIC RESOURCE / SHORELINE PROTECTION / etc.), county, region, facility, minAcres, bbox.
getServiceInfo
Schema, record count, max-page cap (2000), all 23 CATEGORY codedValues with counts (live), 9 DEC administrative regions, §0 probe notes.

Requirements

Toggle on
Toggle on and use — no setup needed.

Quick Setup Guide

Follow these steps to connect your AI agents to this connector

Open /mcp and enable NY DEC Lands with the toggle — no credentials needed.

Call searchForestPreserve with region: 5 (Adirondack) and minAcres: 1000 for the largest Adirondack Forest Preserve units, or searchWildlifeManagementAreas with wmaName: 'Tonawanda' for that WMA's polygon.

Connect to Your AI Assistant

Choose your AI assistant below for specific setup instructions

Follow these steps to connect NY DEC Lands to Claude:

Step 1: Open Claude Settings

Launch Claude → Click the profile button (bottom left) → Navigate to Settings

Step 2: Access Connectors

Scroll down to the Connectors tab → Navigate to the bottom → Click “Add Custom Connector”

Step 3: Name Your Connector

Enter any name you'd like for this connector

Step 4: Get the Connector URL

Step 5: Add the Connector

Paste the URL in the “Remote MCP Server URL” text box → Click Add

Step 6: Start Using

Your connector is now ready to use in Claude

Follow these steps to connect NY DEC Lands to ChatGPT:

Step 1: Enable Developer Mode

Go to Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Enable Developer mode

Step 2: Create New Connector

Go back to Connectors page → Click “Create” (top right)

Step 3: Name Your Connector

Enter any name you'd like for this connector (descriptions are optional)

Step 4: Get the Connector URL

Step 5: Add the URL

Paste the URL in the “MCP Server URL” text box

Step 6: Set Authentication

Click the authentication dropdown → Select “No authentication” (PatchOps handles authentication internally)

Step 7: Create the Connector

Click “I understand and want to continue” checkbox → Press Create

Step 8: Using the Connector

Start a new chat → Click the + button (left of text box) → Open dropdown → Hover over three dots labeled “More” → Select your connector

Instructions for connecting NY DEC Lands to GitHub Copilot:

Coming Soon

Detailed setup instructions for GitHub Copilot will be added here.

For other MCP-compatible platforms:

Step 1: Get the Connector URL

Step 2: Add to Configuration

Add this configuration to your MCP settings file. Replace the URL with your specific connector URL from the /mcp page:

"NY DEC Lands-MCP": {
  "url": "https://patchops.ai/api/mcp/...",
  "type": "http"
}

Example Configuration

Here’s an example using PatchOps MCP:

"PatchOps-MCP": {
  "url": "https://patchops.ai/api/mcp/...",
  "type": "http"
}