The Text

The legislature in each of the eleven calendar years immediately following the adoption of this amendment shall appropriate out of any funds in the treasury not otherwise appropriated moneys for the acquisition by the state of land, outside the Adirondack and Catskill parks, as now fixed by law, best suited for reforestation, for the reforesting of the same and the protection and management of forests thereon; for the acquisition of land for forest tree nurseries, and for the establishment and maintenance of such nurseries, such appropriations to begin in the first year with the sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000) and increasing annually by the sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) to and including the sixth year and in each of the five years immediately following, a sum equal to that appropriated for the sixth year. All such appropriations to be available until expended. A law enacted pursuant to this section shall take effect without submission to the people.
The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed. Nothing contained in this section nor in the prohibitions of section seven of this article shall prevent the state from cutting, selling or removing the trees, timber, forest products and other materials on any lands hereafter acquired with the moneys herein authorized within the forest preserve counties but outside of the Adirondack and Catskill parks as now fixed or hereafter extended by law.