DENVER - There's big bucks in outdoor recreation for the state of Colorado, according to a new report from the Outdoor Industry Association. It tallied what people spend on outdoor gear and clothing, guide services, and travel expenses, and said it totals more than $13 billion in Colorado. It also brings in nearly a million dollars in state and local taxes.

Denver-based Trout's Fly Fishing is one of those outdoor recreation businesses. Owner Tucker Ladd recalled the dry, fire-filled summer of 2002 when tourism plummeted, and the effects rippled across the state.

"It's not just fly shops and ski areas and river outfitters," Ladd remarked. "It's grocery stores. It's gas stations. It's hotels and bed-and-breakfasts."

Ladd only employs five people, but he said a small business such as his is the proverbial canary in the coal mine: if they can survive, it means the outdoor industry is healthy. And, he said, bigger outfitters such as Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops plan on opening huge retail stores on the Front Range later this year, in another sign of the industry's health.

Peter Dykstra with The Wilderness Society said people may not think of recreation as an industry because they see it as a hobby. But more people are working so that others can play outdoors. In Colorado, according to the report, outdoor recreation directly generates 125,000 jobs that pay $4.2 billion in wages.

"The reason this is important information for land conservation is, they're not making any more land and we need to protect it," Dykstra remarked. "And by doing so, we create the one thing we do need more of and can create more of, which is more jobs."

Nationwide, outdoor recreation employs more Americans than the oil and gas and technology industries combined. Tucker Ladd said he thinks that's a big reason to balance recreation and energy development on Colorado lands.

"Smart growth and planning it out is going to be better for everyone in the long term than is just letting all this land get used for oil and gas exploration without really looking at the long-term effects it has on outdoor recreation," Ladd declared.

The report found that at least 65 percent of Coloradans participate in outdoor recreation each year.

See the report at OutdoorIndustry.org.



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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.

Arizona conservation groups and sportsmen alike say they're pleased the Bureau of Land Management will now recognize conservation as an integral part of public lands management.

The agency's new rule puts protecting the environment on par with other land-use priorities.

Scott Garlid, executive director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, said historically the BLM has done what he termed a "pretty good job," not only managing about 12 million acres of public lands in Arizona, but also protecting natural resources.

"They've got a tough job," Garlid acknowledged. "I think this rule helps make their job a little bit easier because it gives them some tools to balance those different demands on the 12 million acres that they manage."

Garlid predicted the rule will raise what he terms "harder-to-quantify conservation values" to the same level of importance as more extractive land uses like oil and gas exploration and mining. He thinks most Arizonans will recognize the new rule as a positive. A solid majority of Arizona voters across party lines say they are conservationists and use public lands for recreation.

To Garlid, the rule makes it clear the BLM is recognizing certain parts of federal lands, in Arizona and around the West, have been degraded. He contended restoration leases will be a good tool, allowing the BLM to lease acres to groups specifically to improve the conditions on a given landscape. He noted opponents of the new rule might see the leases as a way to "lock up" land but he argued it is not true.

"One example could be a nonprofit, like the Arizona Wildlife Federation," Garlid pointed out. "We could get a conservation lease from the Bureau of Land Management to do riparian restoration work, or work to remove invasive species along a creek bank."

According to the BLM, while a restoration or mitigation lease is in place, casual uses of the leased lands like recreation, hunting, fishing and research activities would generally continue.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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