Black Rock Forest is a 3,870-acre (15.7 km²) forest and biological field station maintained by Black Rock Forest Consortium. It is located in the western Hudson Highlands region of the U.S. state of New York, in Orange County, mostly in the town of Cornwall, with the southern fringe overlapping into the neighboring town of Highlands.

First established by a local resident in 1928, the forest was the property of Harvard University until 1989. The Consortium has invested heavily in facilities to not only improve its research and educational missions but promote sustainability, erecting several green buildings in the middle of the forest with guest facilities, classrooms and laboratories. Its educational facilities are used by groups at every level, from the primary elementary grades to college undergraduates. Over 400 papers have been published from research done in the forest.

The current forest began to grow about 14,000 years ago, with the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Originally, like many post-glacial forests, it consisted of evergreen conifers such as spruce and fir, but as the climate warmed they gave way to the deciduous species of oak and maple that now predominate.

Like much of the Highlands, the land now part of Black Rock had been heavily impacted by human usage. Native communities hunted the forest extensively, built large settlements and started forest fires to clear sections of the woods and prevent larger natural ones. After colonization of the Hudson Valley in 1690, the impact becomes more evident to the contemporary eye. During the last years of the Revolutionary War the Continental Army used the Continental Road that runs through the center of the property to get between West Point and its encampment at New Windsor. Spy Rock got its name from its use by Continental soldiers as a lookout point where they could monitor Newburgh Bay for any signs of British activity on the strategically important Hudson River.

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