FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 21, 2015
DENVER—As candidates begin to speak on Western public lands issues, the Center for Western Priorities released the following statement:
Jennifer Rokala, Executive Director:
When presidential hopefuls from both parties visit the West, they must understand the importance of public lands to the people who live here. The polling on public lands is crystal clear: 95 percent of Westerners visit and enjoy their lands each year, and they know that these places are vital to the economy. Sportsmen especially say it’s important to preserve access to public lands for hiking, hunting, and fishing. And across the West, voters of all political stripes—including a majority of Tea Party supporters—say they consider public lands to be American lands that belong to all of us, not places that belong to individual states.
Here are key numbers to know about public lands and the department charged with managing many of these lands:
- The Department of the Interior, which contains the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, manages 417 million acres of U.S. public lands.
- According to the Interior Department, 93 percent of its employees (67,000 out of 72,000) currently work outside of Washington, D.C.
- Protected public lands, like national parks, monuments, and forests are an economic boon for Western counties. Western counties with more protected public lands have higher per capita incomes and add jobs significantly faster than counties without protected lands.
- Currently 172 national parks—or 43 percent of all parks—in 44 states are at potential risk of development because of unprotected private lands within park boundaries. When a willing seller wants to sell his or her land to the National Park Service and protect it for future generations, the only source of federal funding available to make the purchase is the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
For more on voter opinion about public lands in the West, refer to this CWP fact sheet and the 2015 Conservation in the West Poll from the Colorado College State of the Rockies project. The poll includes a detailed look at the conservation priorities of Latino voters across the West:
- 86 percent want future presidents to protect existing public lands as national monuments.
- Less than a quarter want to sell off national forests and other land to reduce the budget deficit.
- Latino voters are far more likely than the electorate as a whole to worry about inadequate water supplies; pollution of our rivers, lakes, and streams; and loss of fish and wildlife habitat.
Jennifer Rokala is available for video and audio interviews. Contact Aaron Weiss at 720-279-0019 or aaron@westernpriorities.org.