Public lands managers with tight budgets need more funding to cope with the impacts of Front Range population growth, and recreation lovers should be encouraged to become better stewards of those lands, according to a vision statement issued Wednesday by a task force coordinating efforts to address pressures arising from surging visitation.
NoCo Places, a coalition of public lands managers in the northern Front Range that was formed in 2019, set out specific goals and management principles in a 16-page “Conservation and Recreation Vision” statement resulting from monthly meetings held over the past five years. NoCo members include representatives from Rocky Mountain National Park, the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and five counties east of the Continental Divide.
“The state demographer says by 2050, the state’s going to grow to 7.48 million, and 6.3 million will be living along the Front Range,” said NoCo Places executive director Steve Coffin. “That’s why this vision is so important. The Front Range mountains and foothills are going to feel the brunt of that. It’s important that we have a vision for how the future of this region will be managed. This problem is only going to get more challenging.”
The vision statement outlines areas where federal, state and county land managers can collaborate in creating common approaches to the challenges.
“The status quo,” the vision document says, “is no longer sufficient.”
One of NoCo Place’s goals is to build more community support “for increased funding for public land management.” Rocky Mountain National Park, for example, has a deferred maintenance backlog of $200 million, according to the park’s public affairs officer, Kyle Patterson.
“It’s not just Rocky, it’s the forest service, too,” Coffin said. “There is a clear recognition that funding is a huge challenge, whether it comes to managing public lands for recreation, but also for fire protection and management. Our public lands need more money, period.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is in a better financial position, thanks in part to the Keep Colorado Wild program, launched last year, which provides a revenue stream from motor vehicle registration renewals. A $29 fee is added to registration renewals in return for an annual CPW pass, unless applicants opt out of the fee.
“Right now CPW is not hurting, and we are able to expand our mission, but it’s like a rubber band,” said Shannon Schaller, deputy regional manager for the northeast region of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “I was here 10 years ago when we were slashing programs. With any resource agency, budgets are cyclical. If we can build programs where we share the work across boundaries, or have mechanisms to gain funds to do the work that we all agree to, that’s stability moving forward that is not tied to political decisions or other means that can move up and down.”
Among the goals identified in the vision statement are increasing conservation and restoration efforts across the region, integrating conservation with recreation planning, promoting diversity by encouraging visitation by groups that feel as if they’re not welcome in outdoor spaces, and “inspiring a stewardship ethic” that creates a sense of ownership and responsibility among visitors.
“I think people need to understand that resource agencies and counties cannot do it alone,” Schaller said. “We can set up the framework, we can understand what’s important to the public … but none of that works if people don’t adopt them, accept them and put them into practice.”
Schaller said examples of stewardship include practicing Leave No Trace principles and following rules set out by management agencies.
“An example would be wildlife closures,” Schaller said. “If you‘re on a mountain bike and you see a sign, turn around and go the other way. That’s important stewardship. It all matters, otherwise it’s a death by a thousand cuts. You hear about how much people love wildlife and they love being outdoors, and that’s why they live in Colorado. Great, if you do, there are things you need to do to ensure you are not a detriment when you are outdoors.”
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Meanwhile federal and state land managers in the NoCo region, along with Larimer, Boulder, Jefferson, Gilpin and Clear Creek counties, will continue to look for common solutions and strategies to the problems they face.
“When I first came to Rocky Mountain National Park a year ago, I quickly learned that all public lands in the northern Colorado area are facing immense pressure with our collective increase in visitation,” said Superintendent Gary Ingram. “I get it, people love to live in and visit Colorado for its amazing resources. NoCo Places’ vision provides a unique and amazing opportunity to address common goals and continue to work on sustainable, longer-term solutions for resource protection and outstanding visitor experiences.”
Schaller sees the release of the vision statement as a declaration of commitment among those agencies intended to inspire trust in the public.
“We have a lot of great natural resources, but our current trajectory of people on the landscape was not sustainable,” Schaller said. “Nobody wanted to continue this path of more and more people experiencing things in a negative way, or being in wildlife habitat in such a way that degradation and irreplaceable loss would happen. There is a need across all of us to do this work, because the way we’re going, we are going to destroy these places, or not have anything left, or look back with regret.”