The F Word

America is the fattest country in the world, and deciphering how public lands can support a solution to this sad and daunting statistic is the topic of Partners Outdoors 2011. Partners Outdoors is a collection of leaders from land management agencies such as the National Park Service, National Association of State Park Directors, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others. It also hosts private sector and NGO partners including groups like Bass Pro Shops, BlueCross Blue Shield, National Wildlife Federation and the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics.

Speakers and panels have batted around staggering statistics:
• One in four Americans is morbidly obese.
• 27% of adults who are eligible for military service cannot join because they are too overweight.
• Children spend over 7 hours a day using technology.
• A 5% decrease in the use of state parks last year was documented.

Further, Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., the VP and Chief Medical Officer of BlueCross BlueShield sited the following research regarding Americans perceptions about the outdoors:

• There are physical but not cognitive and emotional benefits to being outside.
• Parents have great concerns about safety in the outdoors.
• There is little modeling, mentoring and storytelling regarding the outdoors
• Younger parents have little belief or interest in the relevance of the outdoors in rearing their children.

The healthcare industry’s role is central to any traction that links healthy people to the outdoors, and healthcare representatives talked today about shifting the national conversation from accountable care to accountable health. The meeting’s goal is to make an action plan to bring public lands into the fold of national healthy lifestyle campaigns.

Leave No Trace comes into active play in any conversation that involves increasing participation on public lands. Let’s hope that this initiative has the legs to impact Americans’ health while supporting visitation on public lands. Leave No Trace, as always, is ready with programs and education to support it.

Road Wisdom: Our National Parks

So, this is the type of Road Wisdom that we would usually come up with as the busy summer season approaches. However, recently we have been fortunate enough to spend a good amount of time in some of our National Parks, which are still very busy. So here goes.

Whether it’s the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, people trying to save a few bucks by going outdoors for vacation, or President Obama sightings at the Grand Canyon, National Parks have been reporting increased visits across the country. The reports for the first half alone of 2009 showed that National Park visits had increased by 4.5 million. This is great news for the parks and great news for those concerned about ‘nature deficit disorder’.

So, in honor of America’s Best Idea, we wanted to offer a few reminders to all National Park visitors. These were some of the most common impacts (in no particular order) to our Parks that can be easily fixed by us, the visitors:

• Trash – When visiting the Parks be ready to pack your trash out to the nearest trash cans or recycling bins.
• Pets – Check the Park regulations about leash requirements and be prepared to pick up after them.
• Wildlife – Feeding wildlife can not only hurt them, but could hurt you as well.
• Speeding – Speeding kills numerous animals every year in our Parks, over 20 bears have been killed in Yosemite National Park alone in 2009 by speeding vehicles.
• Trail etiquette – Remember, hikers always yield to pack animals and bikers always yield to hikers and pack animals.
  

See ya out there,

JD & Emily
Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers

Where are all the kids?

I was recently looking at visitation statistics* for lands managed by the National Park Service and noticed an alarming trend - numbers of visitors to our nations national parks, national recreation areas, national seashores, etc. have been on the decline since the late 90's:

1997: 275,236,335
1998: 286,762,265
1999: 287,130,879
2000: 285,891,275
2001: 279,873,926
2002: 277,299,880
2003: 266,099,641
2004: 276,908,337
2005: 273,488,751
2006: 272,623,980

*Data from Public Use Statistics Office of the NPS



While some may view this as welcome relief for our sometimes overused national park lands, I view it as part of a larger problems that we're experiencing - less and less people are being exposed to the wonders of the out-of-doors. Why is this a concern? It's a concern because it begs the question of who will be the next generation of supporters of national parks and other public lands. As you've no doubt heard, there has been a great emphasis placed on getting more kids outside. The book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv sparked much action to combat what he termed nature deficit disorder. Many of the federal land management agencies have programs such as the Bureau of Land Management's Take It Outside program. There are also many web-based resources such as the Children and Nature Network which are specifically trying to provide more opportunities for children to get out and experience the out-of-doors.

With all the increased emphasis on getting kids outside, Leave No Trace certainly has a role to play. More people on the land means more opportunities for impact. However, it also mean more opportunities for education! If every kid who experiences the out-of-doors were introduced to Leave No Trace, think what the future of our shared lands would look like. While it saddens me greatly to think that we've become so technologically advanced that our kids our now suffering from nature deficit disorder, I do find great hope in the fact that steps, BIG steps, are being taken to expose our youth to all that nature has to offer.