Outdoor Alliance Leaders Meet (Virtually) with Decision Makers in D.C.
Photo credit: Patrick Hendry
This week, the executive directors and CEOs of Outdoor Alliance’s member organizations – Access Fund, American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, IMBA, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, the Mazamas, Colorado Mountain Club, and Surfrider Foundation – met virtually in Washington D.C. with policymakers and decision makers on key issues for the human-powered outdoor recreation community.
Since the inception of Outdoor Alliance more than 15 years ago, the coalition has regularly convened its executive directors to meet with lawmakers and administration officials in D.C. to advocate for outdoor recreation and conservation issues. The Outdoor Alliance groups share a great deal of common priorities and values, and our unified voices are a powerful way to protect the outdoors.
This week, we met with leaders at the USDA and the U.S. Forest Service, the Department of Interior, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Vice President’s office, and Senate and House members working closely on outdoor recreation issues, including Sens. Wyden, Heinrich, Padilla, and Cantwell, and Reps. DeGette, Curtis, Kilmer, Jayapal, Adam Smith, Neguse, and Schrier.
With recreation more popular and more in-demand than ever before, Outdoor Alliance has been working toward solutions for creating more sustainable, equitable outdoor opportunities, as well as conserving key landscapes for outdoor recreation, and ensuring that the agencies in charge of stewarding lands and waters have the resources they need to keep trails, parking lots, restrooms, and campgrounds open. Our meetings this week focused on some of the key solutions for building more sustainable, equitable access to the outdoors. These include:
Protecting public lands and waters. In particular, we have focused on a package of landscape protections called Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act (PAW+), which would provide permanent protection for 4 million acres of public lands and waters with enormous conservation and recreation value.
Funding public lands and waters. Land managers need adequate resources to maintain trails, parking lots, restrooms, camping, and other recreation assets. We have advocated for bold investments in the Forest Service and other agencies through appropriations; effective implementation for the Great American Outdoors Act; and programs like a new Civilian Climate Corps, which would create good jobs rebuilding outdoor infrastructure.
Creating more sustainable, accessible, equitable recreation. We have focused on policies like the Recreation Not Red-Tape Act, which will help identify, plan for, and protect recreation on public lands, as well as legislation to provide more equitable access to the outdoors, like the SOAR Act, Outdoor FUTURE, and Outdoors for All.
Ensuring that public lands and waters are part of climate solutions. Climate change has wide-ranging impacts, including on recreation. Devastating forest fires, floods, and landslides affect trails, access points, and other recreation resources. We are advocating for climate solutions that include initiatives like 30x30, investing in thoughtful renewable energy, and reducing the role of fossil fuel development on public lands.
A strength of Outdoor Alliance is our ability to unite the voices of America’s outdoor recreation community and advocate on behalf of the millions of Americans who get outside to climb, paddle, hike, surf, ski, and mountain bike each year. Each of our member groups brings enormous resources and advocacy power on behalf of its community, and together, we amplify our power with decision makers and elected officials. Over the years, our joint advocacy has resulted in millions of protected acres, billions of dollars for recreation, improved policies for fire funding and more.
Here’s what Outdoor Alliance leadership had to say:
"Outdoor Alliance brings together ten of the nation's leading recreation and conservation organizations to advocate for conserving public lands and waters and improving outdoor experiences on them. With outdoor recreation more in demand than ever, we are meeting with policymakers to explore how we can work together to protect more land and water, invest in the agencies that steward our public lands, and help ensure that everyone has access to the outdoors. We are excited about how many policymakers share our commitment to conserving and improving outdoor experiences, and we're hopeful we can see more positive outdoor recreation legislation passed this Congress." – Adam Cramer, CEO, Outdoor Alliance
“The American Alpine Club is delighted to work alongside Outdoor Alliance and our partners to advocate for climbing, conservation, communities, and climate. On behalf of our members and climbers across the country, we are advocating for bills like the Protecting America's Wilderness and Public Lands Act, which will protect public lands, help increase equitable access, and move us closer to our goal to protect 30% of America's lands and waters by 2030. We are excited to work with Rep. DeGette, Rep. Neguse, and other champions of public lands and climate to protect gems in Colorado and across the United States.” – Mitsu Iwasaki, CEO, American Alpine Club
“Outdoor Alliance allows American Whitewater the ability to work closely with other coalition members in the human-powered outdoor recreation space to advance our collective policy interests. Instead of one organization trying to be smart on policy we combine our best ideas and develop proposals that have a broad base of input allowing the best ideas to be fully vetted and incorporated in Outdoor Alliance comments and policy positions.” - Mark Singleton, Executive Director, American Whitewater
"As climbers, we care deeply about protecting the special places and public lands that mean so much to us. Through Outdoor Alliance, we have joined together with other outdoor enthusiasts to bring our positive vision to Washington, DC. If we're smart, we can promote outdoor recreation, protect public lands, and support rural economies all across the country." Chris Winter, Executive Director, Access Fund
"As part of the Outdoor Alliance coalition, American Canoe Association has successfully advocated for many issues that are important to the paddling community. As we meet with policymakers in DC this week, we are bringing our collective voices to protect the waters that our members enjoy through legislation like the Protecting America's Wilderness and Public Lands Act and through initiatives like 30x30, which will protect more water that paddlers, canoeists, and kayakers enjoy." – Beth Spilman, Executive Director, ACA
"Outdoor Alliance is an important element in the success of IMBA’s policy efforts as it help to amplify the importance of human powered outdoor recreation. When organizations such as ours share common goals, we can accomplish transformative change. Given the challenges of a global pandemic, a recovering economy, and the uncertainty surrounding climate change, outdoor recreation is now more important than ever. That is why we are here to talk about investment in trail infrastructure, access to our public lands for all, and policies that protect lands for not only conservation but recreation as well. As a founding organization, IMBA continues to be a proud member of Outdoor Alliance." - Kent McNeill, CEO, IMBA
“The Mountaineers is a proud member of Outdoor Alliance. Working with Outdoor Alliance allows The Mountaineers to more effectively educate and engage its 14,000 members in the process of conservation advocacy. By coordinating with other OA member organizations, we're able to speak with a more unified voice, on important issues such as public lands funding, expanded protection for wild places, addressing the climate crisis, and access for responsible outdoor recreation.” Tom Vogl, CEO, The Mountaineers
"The Mazamas is delighted to work alongside Outdoor Alliance to advocate for protecting lands in Oregon and across the west, improving recreation policy, and bringing climbers and outdoor recreation voices to advance climate solutions. As a coalition, we are able to do more together than we could alone, and we're thrilled to meet with policymakers in DC this week to advocate for Mazama priorities." Sarah Bradham, Acting Executive Director, Mazamas
“Winter Wildlands Alliance is dedicated to working collaboratively with our Outdoor Alliance partners and co-members to represent our collective community and membership. Our critical work to conserve America's public lands, creating equitable access to outdoor recreation and working to protect of our recreational resources through NEPA and advocating for issues beyond our individual mission are paramount to our collective success." Todd Walton, Executive Director, Winter Wildlands Alliance