The Public Lands Pledge in Action
Photo credit: Rikki Rivera
If you haven’t signed the Public Lands Pledge yet, join your name with thousands of other outdoor enthusiasts ready to see decision makers pursue an ambitious vision of protected public lands and waters that work for everyone, not just a handful of entrenched interests.
But how do we see this pledge becoming a reality? Here’s an example.
Our vision is that all Americans have opportunities to get outside and experience a spectrum of sustainable outdoor recreation opportunities, from close-to-home trails to wild and remote backcountry destinations. Outdoor recreation has become more popular, with more than 144 million Americans getting outside every year. As a result, there are immense pressures on public lands and waters, especially popular, close-to-home spaces. Many of the tools we have to protect landscapes work best on remote backcountry destinations, leaving close-to-home places exposed to development threats or lacking the resources to maintain appropriate recreation resources.
To achieve our vision of sustainable recreation from the frontcountry to the backcountry, we need to invest in infrastructure that supports sustainable access and visitation in popular areas close to population centers, including things like purpose-built mountain biking trails and trails for skiers and snowshoers. As population density rises in cities, recreation close to urban centers should be sustainably managed for higher visitor use. Coastal parks and marine protected areas should support coastal recreation. And wild backcountry experiences should be managed for solitude, adventure, and conservation, so there is a range of experiences available to people who love to get outside.
In practical terms, this means pursuing legislation like the Recreation Not Red-Tape Act, which will provide better protection and management for landscapes with high recreation value. Right now, the primary tools to protect landscapes are mainly designed for remote, backcountry areas, leaving popular frontcountry areas exposed to development pressure or under ill-fitting management. Additionally, tools like the recently reauthorized Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) are designed to protect recreation opportunities, from neighborhood parks to National Parks, but we still need another push to ensure that permanent funding allows this program to live up to its promise.
One big recent victory is designating the Mountains to Sound Greenway in Washington as a National Heritage Area. Extending from the Seattle waterfront to Ellensburg, the Mountains to Sound Greenway is an outdoor paradise with 1,600 miles of trails, the stunning Cascade Crest, excellent whitewater runs, backcountry skiing and snowshoeing, rock climbing routes, and mountain biking, all with easy access from Seattle and surrounding areas.
A coalition of outdoor recreation groups in Washington, including the Greenway Trust, The Mountaineers, Access Fund, American Whitewater, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, and Washington Trails Association worked together to encourage people who love the outdoors to protect and enhance this fantastic outdoor resource by designating it a National Heritage Area. Together, we doubled the number of signatures to legislators asking them to protect this important landscape and were instrumental in the bill’s passage.
There are more big victories ahead of us if we work together. 2020 is a big year and could be a tipping point for our public lands and waters. We are gearing up to make sure that lawmakers of all stripes hear our voices demanding a better, more sustainable, more ambitious future for public lands.
Our goal is to collect the signatures of 10,000+ individuals, organizations, and brands that care about outdoor recreation. We will then deliver your stories to decision-makers in Washington D.C. in early 2020, including to:
The current administration and all presidential candidates running in 2020
Land-management agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service
A broad spectrum of policymakers and influencers.
The more pledge signatures we have, the stronger our impact. This campaign is designed to elevate public lands, waters, and the environment—issues that a large majority of Americans care about—in America’s political discourse ahead of the 2020 elections
Join us today, if you haven’t already: