Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell kicked off National Parks Week on Tuesday with a major speech outlining a new vision for a second century of parks conservation. The speech highlighted the problems faced by national parks, including maintenance backlogs, lack of robust funding, climate change, and the rise of an extreme movement to sell off public lands.
A major action item from Jewell’s speech was an announcement that the Department of Interior will work with the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to do a first-ever study to measure the impact outdoor recreation has on the economy. Despite the major economic powerhouse that outdoor recreation can be for towns, businesses, and communities near public lands, the BEA has not measured or tracked its outputs as it does the outputs of other major sectors of the economy.
“Hunting, boating, hiking, OHVing, wildlife viewing, and other outdoor activities are so closely tied to the health and accessibility of our public lands, yet this sector has, for too long, been overlooked and undervalued,” said Secretary Jewell in the speech. “Industry estimates show that consumer spending for outdoor recreation is almost equal to pharmaceuticals and motor vehicles and parts combined — and yet the federal government has never fully recognized or quantified these benefits.”
A #CountMyJob campaign — started last year by outdoor recreation companies, conservation organizations and the Center for American Progress — called on the federal government to measure the economic impact of outdoor recreation as a sector of the economy.
A fact sheet released Tuesday by the Federal Recreation Council says that, as part of its new report, BEA will incorporate statistics on production, employment, compensation, value added and other economic benefits from the U.S. outdoor recreation industry.
Why Doesn’t Uncle Sam Count Outdoor Recreation Jobs?Climate by CREDIT: shutterstock Even though the outdoor recreation industry, by its own reckoning, employs far more…thinkprogress.orgThe Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group representing outdoor retailers and manufacturers, has estimated that the recreation economy generates $646 billion in consumer spending each year and supports 6.1 million direct jobs. That’s more jobs than mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging support combined, not to mention the quality of life and health benefits that come from recreation and public lands.
“Including outdoor recreation as part of U.S. GDP shows that leaders in Washington, D.C. agree that investing in outdoor recreation is an investment in America’s healthy communities and healthy economies,” the Outdoor Industry Association said today in a post on their website. “Our hope is that these numbers will be used by policymakers at the federal, state and local levels to invest in recreation infrastructure.”
This new study to measure the contribution of outdoor recreation to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is indispensable to the development of effective, economically efficient policies that promote economic growth and stability. The information gained in the study will help capture the full economic contributions of outdoor recreation and will provide comprehensive and justifiable data to inform decision makers and the long-term management of America’s public lands.
“We want to know the impact of everything from buying gear, to hiring a guide, to renting hotel rooms in gateway communities. This project is the start of a multi-year effort to quantify these contributions in a comprehensive and impartial way,” said Secretary Jewell. “So today, we are putting America’s outdoor economy on equal footing with every other major economic sector. This fast-growing economic powerhouse deserves to be counted.”
Secretary Jewell also discussed the disappearance of western landscapes, building a more inclusive park system that represents the country’s growing diversity, protecting the Antiquities Act, the importance of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, wildlife conservation, and landscape level planning.
Jenny Rowland is the Research and Advocacy Associate for the Public Lands Project at Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter @jennyhrowland