Advocacy 101: Going from Outdoor Enthusiast to Outdoor Advocate
Most of us don’t give much thought to how our favorite trails, crags, rivers, or campsites were developed or protected. While you might appreciate protected public lands and waters, how much do you know about how these places came to be protected, what they need to be maintained, and what role you might play in making that happen?
The U.S. is tremendously fortunate to have a vast and beautiful public lands system, though the existence of public lands has a complicated history. Most of us know that the places we call “public lands” today were once stewarded by Indigenous people, who were forcibly removed and (often violently) dispossessed of their homelands. Today, the U.S. government stewards 640 million acres of public land in trust for the American people.
While many of us are aware of the problems facing public lands—a lack of funding, encroaching development, climate change eroding landscapes—it can be hard to know where to start when it comes to advocating for the places you love. Public lands and waters are frequently under threat, and it is only because of continued advocacy that these places remain open, accessible, stewarded, and protected. The outdoor community has been a powerful advocate for public lands and waters, conservation, and climate action. In the last ten years, our direct advocacy has helped protect millions of acres, has secured billions in funding for management and restoration, and has helped craft policies that protect the places we love to ski, bike, climb, hike, and paddle. Our connection to place is part of what makes our advocacy so effective.
Maybe you’re already calling your members of Congress regularly, following the issues with an advocacy organization you trust, or even putting in stewardship hours for your favorite trail, crag, or put-in. But if you are ready to shift from just enjoying the outdoors to advocating to protect the outdoors, it’s simpler than you might think to get started.
1. Start writing and calling your members of Congress. Don’t overthink it! There’s a lot of noise out there about the best ways to approach climate change, public land protections, and outdoor recreation, and if a modicum of that energy was spent just making regular phone calls to elected officials, we’d be making a whole lot more progress than we already are. If you are going to do one thing, you should be calling or writing your member of Congress regularly. They are elected to represent you, and they care what you think (if only because it affects their chances of being re-elected). You don’t even have to keep up on everything happening on the Hill to make a difference when you’re making these calls or writing these letters. Just regularly checking in with your two Senators and your House Representative (bonus if you add state or local lawmakers) to tell them that you care about the outdoors, public lands, outdoor recreation, and climate change, and want to see them continue to make that a priority will make a difference in how your lawmaker behaves. Learn a bit more about what happens in a lawmaker’s office when you make these calls. Making sure your lawmaker hears from you regularly is infinitely more important than following every piece of public land policy news.
2. Follow along with the most important issues you care about by finding an organization that keeps track of the conservation issues you care about. Finding an organization you trust that is following the recreation and conservation issues that matter is like pressing the “easy” button. These organizations can help you keep track of good moments to write your lawmakers and what to write them about. At Outdoor Alliance, our staff has more than 75 collective years of experience with public land policy and advocacy. We do our best to follow all the shenanigans happening in D.C. and around the country and make it plug-and-play for you to get involved. You can sign up for action alerts here, read recent news here, and take action in our action center here. You can also find local organizations stewarding your favorite places, sign up to hear from the Forest Service or Park Service for particular landscapes, or just start following a few reporters who cover the issues that matter to you.
3. Encourage other people to do the same thing! Once you’re regularly calling or writing your lawmakers and have a handle on how you like to get your conservation news, the most effective thing you can do is share these opportunities with people you know. Pass along relevant action alerts to your friends and family, mention that you’ve been calling your members of Congress to your trail buddies, and ask your loved ones to join you in asking your elected officials to prioritize conservation.
The world of advocacy goes deep, but you don’t need to be reading 100-page rulemakings to make a difference. Start by just committing to writing or calling your members of Congress every few months, or anytime you read about public lands legislation in the news, and asking them to prioritize the outdoors and conservation. If you want to go deeper, you can learn more about funding public lands and waters, get to know the groups working on behalf of outdoor recreation, or take action right now on a first-of-its-kind recreation package called America’s Outdoor Recreation Act.
It's less complicated than you think to get involved—harness your passion for the outdoors and turn it into advocacy to keep the places you love protected for the long-run.