by Jessica Goad, cross-posted from TP Green
Today over 100 economists from top universities, economic firms, counties, and other groups sent a letter to President Obama urging him to protect more national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas. The signatories make the case that because the western United States is shifting from a resource extraction-based economy to one founded in tourism and the migration of Americans wanting to live close to wide open spaces, protected places are valuable economically.
As the letter stated, “protected public lands are significant contributors to economic growth.” Ray Rasker, the executive director of Headwaters Economics, who holds a Ph.D from Oregon State University, further explained that:
In the last 40 years, the fastest growth in the West has been in communities that are adjacent to protected public lands. It’s one of the West’s competitive advantages, it’s one of the strengths of the West, and investing in these sorts of public lands—the wilderness areas, the national monuments, the national parks—is a way to protect the competitive advantage of the west. This is what is creating jobs currently, and at a time when we have high unemployment, we need policies that create jobs.
Watch it:
There is a wide variety of jobs created from protecting public lands, many of which are detailed in the Center for American Progress’ recent report, “The Jobs Case for Conservation.” These include outdoor guides, construction workers restoring trails and forests, manufacturers of outdoor goods like skis and hunting equipment, engineers, and park rangers, to name just a few. The Outdoor Industry Association notes that the outdoor recreation industry supports 6.5 million jobs and $730 billion in economic growth every year.
ThinkProgress recently reported that a handful of House Republicans, such as Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), have denied that protecting the West’s special places has positive economic impacts. At a hearing last month, Bishop stated, “Contrary to claims by the administration and others, the designation of national monuments and wilderness are not a boon to local economies, but rather a detriment in most scenarios.”
Additionally, members of the Congressional Western Caucus — a group made up entirely of Republicans — labeled the designation of national monuments and wilderness expansion as “job-killing” policies in a report last year.
Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. This post was originally published at Think Progress Green.
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All well and good but what the Nation truly needs to do is the protect all of Earth’s life support systems so that ALL LIFE can prosper, for ever. Think of the jobs that will usher in.
It will do little good to protect National Parks while simultaneously pulling the threads of the very fabric of life with polluted air, water, earth, and acidic oceans.
I feel a little ambivalent about how this is so broadly framed. On the one hand I am all for protecting more National Parks, Monuments, and Wilderness Areas with the emphasis on Wilderness. We need to pay special attention to large biomass areas that can sequester carbon as they go through changes imposed by warming including beetle infestations, burning, and regrowth. Unfortunately we keep building right up against and into our National Forest and Parks making it imperative to “fight” fires and continue fire suppression whereas what we need is more buffer. Populations of animals where they are protected are also stressed by the encroachment of people: the Yellowstone Bison, Wolf, and Grizzly for example.
Growth may not be all bad, but we need smart growth for sure. I have hiked into the middle of Sisters Wilderness and been joined by fellow hikers and listened to one woman exclaim when seeing the view, “This is where I want a house!” Another time riding in a van someone looked up at a completely forested ridge line and said, “That is where I want a house, right up there!” Check the Greed! Will you?
So, when I read the jobs to “include outdoor guides, construction workers restoring trails and forests, manufacturers of outdoor goods like skis and hunting equipment, engineers, and park rangers, to name just a few,” that all sounds good but with reservations—please no more growth for growths sake. And do we really need a curio shop at the top of the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado selling crap from China?
Smart growth in my book would include small rail lines. I live close to hiking, skiing, and beaches but they are hard to access without a car. In Europe you can get to those places easily by train. The nearest mountain pass and ski resort to me used to have a rail line. I have long thought that the answer to Yosemite’s traffic and pollution problems is a light rail system into the valley and up to the pass (that goes for the Grand Canyon as well). A little imagination and investment is in order.
Oregon has very little federally protected wilderness. Candidates would include the Siskiyou Mountains and parts of the Cascades.
If you google earth Oregon, you will see a patchwork of clearcuts, most of them on national forests. Restoration of these forests would carry many benefits, including to salmon and our carbon budget.
“The signatories make the case that… Americans [want] to live close to wide open spaces, protected places…”
This doesn’t bode well for the massive deployment of green energy infrastructure :(
Is it possible we can open up wilderness areas and national parks to green energy deployment, or is that a co-existence bridge too far?