The lobbying groups and trade associations involved in Colorado’s multibillion-dollar outdoor recreation industry have lots in common, and they need to act on those common interests.
Outdoor recreation attracts active people who want to experience the awe, excitement, adventure and tranquility of Colorado’s wildlands.
While economically significant in all Western states, this industry is composed of dozens of individual special- interest groups that lack a unifying voice and authority. The industry is akin to an adolescent giant; it does not realize how big and strong it is.
Yet there’s been a new development that might propel it to maturity. New federal policy gives states much greater say over questions about which national forest lands should be managed as roadless.
Gov. Bill Owens will make a recommendation to the Forest Service in 18 months. This decision will have a significant impact on Colorado’s nature- based tourism industry, the state’s economic welfare and image, and our children’s future choices.
The tourism industry recognizes that there are diverse tastes and preferences among both Colorado residents and out-of-state visitors.
It is vital to Colorado’s economic sustainability that we provide a broad spectrum of outdoor opportunities ranging from the neighborhood parks and greenways in our communities to the wildest of our public lands.
Roadless areas represent the wild end of this spectrum and provide a key component to the diversity that Colorado has to offer.
The loss of roadless areas would shrink our financial, ecological and recreational portfolio.
The governor’s recommendation will affect the diversity and spectrum of outdoor opportunities in Colorado.
Outdoor recreationists of all types – hunters, fishers, skiers, boaters, bikers, hikers, photographers, snowmobilers – will be affected.
Of particular consequence will be the impact on the economic welfare and quality of life for rural Colorado communities and the thousands of people who work in the outdoor recreation industry.
The governor can decide to again travel on the “boom and bust” road of economic development, or take the tourism road that is renewable, sustainable and consistent with the natural beauty and quality of life Coloradans desire.
Leadership is needed to analyze the roadless question and map a comprehensive strategy. Since the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the industry needs a unifying voice. Some group, or a new overarching coalition of groups, needs to step forward to help galvanize the nature-based tourism industry and to help energize the thousands of outdoor recreationists who value Colorado’s wildlands
The battle will not be easy. Nature-based tourism is being pitted against the extractive-industry giants of oil, gas, coal and timber. They are organized, powerful, well connected, endowed with taxpayer subsidies, and they have developed unifying voices such as the American Mining Congress, American Petroleum Institute and American Forestry Association. Furthermore, the new roadless policy converts what should be a national decision about national public lands into a state decision about national public lands, thereby muting the voice of all Americans who do not live in Colorado but are equal owners of the federal estate.
The battle that is looming is not fair, nor was it designed to be. It is your classic divide-and-conquer situation: Divide the federal estate into state portions, mute the national public, and pit mature extractive industries against the adolescent tourism industry.
My hope is that a youthful giant will be aroused.
Dr. Glenn E. Haas is a land-use planning consultant and former chairman of the Department of Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism at Colorado State University. He also is a former special assistant in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
