Key Ideas & Recommendations from Cobb County Recreation Forum

The following are some of the key ideas and recommendations delivered at the Recreation Forum in Cobb County, Georgia, on March 9, 2007. Please feel free to add comments on these suggestions and how they can best be implemented.

We need to understand how ethnic diversity will affect the demand for and supply of recreation opportunities. While we must consider the needs of our aging population, who are often the more tradition land users (hunters, fishermen, etc.), we must also understand the under 20 age group, who are in many cases interested in the more extreme sports like rock climbing and mountain biking. Market to the under 20 groups. We can’t afford to become dinosaurs. We must understand language and cultural barriers and be in touch with what people expect from outdoor recreation providers. We cannot use a "business as usual approach."

We’ve got to provide quality, safe opportunities for people to participate in outdoors recreation close to where they live. We must continue to build partnerships with federal, state, and local partners, conservation organizations, and the private sector to set aside lands and take care of those we already have. Maximize recreation opportunities on public lands besides hunting; for backpacking, birdwatching, hiking, etc. Likewise, parks should look for opportunities to improve opportunities hunting and fishing. Support funding for outdoor recreation initiatives on the federal level.
At the local level, county governments must consider Special Local Option Sales Taxes and also bonds to fund parks and recreational opportunities. A great example is in Paulding County, will be the model for years to come.

Let's develop dynamic outreach programs to interest newcomers to outdoor recreation an also reinvigorate those that used to participate but don’t as much as they used to. Encourage programs like "Rails to Trails" and the PATH Foundation to help manage the opportunities to connect lands managed by different organizations. The same could be done for waterways.
Noel Holcomb, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Natural Resources

We need to increase the quality of information given to the public. Our infrastructure and programs cannot be sustained by congressional appropriations alone. We must turn to partnerships and be more aggressive about pursuing them. Broaden the circle of conservation partners.
Charles L. Myers, Regional Forester, USFS Southern Region

Enable the urban population to travel by mass transit to travel to the outdoors. Support volunteerism; the American public must be involved. Assess how we can be less dependent on congressional appropriations in the future.
Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition

SCORP (Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan) needs to include a balance between conservation and use, have a direct connection to a healthy Georgia and a healthy nation, and link the state’s economic vitality to outdoor recreation.We are responding the demographic paradigm shift by creating new partnerships with the Association of County Governments at both the city and county levels, health departments at the state and local levels, and the tourism elements of the State Organization of Economic Development. We also recognize the need to be generational in protecting natural resources.
Becky Kelley, Director of Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites

Get more kids in the woods by taking the message wherever you can. Our 5 main challenges to address are obesity, fear, single parents, boredom, and the education must be relevant.
Dennis Krusac, USFS Southern Region

Get educators (teachers and superintentents) involved. Get the message to the people who have the most influence over how often kids get outside during the day and then give them the skills to do it. Teach them archery, fishing, canoeing, etc.

As a mother of two, I want to know where to take my kids. We as parents need information about state parks, need to know why to take my kids out, and the outdoors need to be marketed better towards children.
Kyla Hastie, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

A lot of everyday recreation people do is in their local park. There are a lot of options for how to build facilities, such as impact fees for developing communities. We must figure out how to help local governments with maintenance and operation costs
Langford Holbrook, University of Georgia’s Fanning Leadership Institute

In America, wildlife is what connects us to outdoor recreation. Wildlife should be a part of everyday curriculum in school; develop schoolyard habitats. Educate kids about the State and Wildlife Action plans so they know the importance of protecting the land. Also, single mothers need to leave their kids with people they trust. Combat the challenge of single-parent households by partnering with churches that have Christian Sportsmen Ministries. Take your kids hunting and fishing because you won’t be hunting for them and you won’t be fishing them out of trouble!
Glen Dowling, Georgia Wildlife Federation

Due to the No Child Left Behind initiative, many science programs are being replaced with reading. The solution is to connect the outdoors with literacy.

In the South, funding isn’t coming from the state legislatures anymore due to the recent natural disasters. Funding needs to come from new, innovative sources. Turtle Point was built with trust monies.

We are losing our children to technology, but we can bring them back with it as well. We should partner with technology companies to do so. We could probably even get money from them.
Shirley West, Turtle Point Environmental Science Center

Most states have a Governor’s Conference on Tourism that brings all the elements of tourism together (transportation, hotels, etc.), so why not have a Governor’s Conference on Children and Nature? Also, politicians love a parade, but it’s difficult to organize their. Give them one! They’ll be more willing to find you funding.

We don’t have a circuit-rider program to connect and share good ideas across the country. We are reinventing the wheel again and again and we shouldn’t do that. Technology can be our friend.
Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition

We started the first environmental justice and leadership institute, went into high schools to work with environmental science kids, and combined what they did in the field with what they did in the classroom. Need access to recreational facilities during the day, at night, or on the weekend. When there’s a money crunch these facilities are usually the first to be closed. We need access to what the state is doing, but we are rarely at the table in the planning stages. We also need support: financial and mentors. Young people need to see people who look like them in the outdoors.
Edith Ladipo, Environmental Education Institute

An initiative with a public/private partnership for Cobb County school students lets us unpack the new Georgia performance standards in science, especially with hands-on science. The new curriculum already being used with 3rd and 5th graders. However, disconnect is at the teacher level as well as at the student level. Teachers weren’t comfortable using the outdoor classrooms. We need to correct this. Science is the number one subject that keeps Georgia students from graduating, so kids need to get engaged with the outdoors. A public/private partnership model is the best way to save good programs.
Lynn McIntyre, Chattahoochee Nature Center

Consider that the outfitters in the country are also partners. They are not just out for money; they have a vested interest in keeping the next generation of Americans connected to the outdoors too.
Bob Westbrook, consultant, board member of Americans Outdoors

The North American Conservation Education Strategy is forming a web-based distance learning resource as a delivery mechanism for information, but it's not going to be possible without partnerships. It is expected to launch in fall of 2008. The goal is to use technology to reach into the classroom.
Tony Schoonen, Wonders of Wildlife

You can’t expose kids to something just one time and expect to make a lifetime difference. 4-H has 3-step programming to keep kids involved long-term.
Aubrey Deck, University of Tennessee

Gear publications towards women. Hit the single-parent families, but also women are often the ones getting their kids outside. They are an important variable. Many of our publications are also geared towards kids to keep them involved all year round, not just when they are at NWTF events.
Christine Rolka, National Wild Turkey Federation

Promote the interaction of people and wildlife on a small scale. You can study nature, not just books.
Dr. Paul Davison, University of North Alabama

We have seen that recreation covers diverse topics: gardening, large-scale wildlife, insects, hunting, technology, education, family. A whole web of things make up the recreation world and we have to think of it that way in order to connect ourselves to each other.
Margaret Bailey, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

It’s important to make that heart connection with children and nature at a very early age. Work with the curriculum needs of the school system.
Melissa Hamilton, Chattahoochee Nature Center

In Golden, there was a lot of concern about liability. Legislatively, it’s important to protect our partner organizations, especially those with deep pockets. We can deal with that by partnering companies with municipalities.

There are also inadvertent difficulties created by regulations. Outfitters shouldn’t have to pay to take kids outdoors. Ex: WOW program in Los Angeles. Commercial pack string operator takes WOW kids out, but has to count the kids as paying customers. It becomes a deterrent to concessioners operating on public lands to take underprivileged kids out on tours.
Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition

We have not been great advocates of connecting nature to health. Dr. Louv’s labeling of Nature Deficit Disorder has helped all of us take more action, but we all have to understand that we must be ambassadors in linking nature and recreation to health and make sure our own professionals understand this. Currently there is a challenge to 7 parks across the country to demonstrate how being outdoors is health-related.
Fran Mainella, former director of the National Park Service

It's important to get to the element of play and to be less restrictive in terms of letting children explore their environment. It's also important to make some of the learning free from adults. Perhaps teenagers are better leaders to bring the message. Perhaps there should be a re-purposing of Americorps and other volunteer programs.
Laurie Fenwood, USFWS

Put the fun first! Let's use the fear element to our advantage. People will pay a fortune at Six Flags to be scared out of their wits! We just have to figure out how to turn the negatives into positives.
Roger Reid, Writer and Producer of TV show "Discovering Alabama"

There is currently a Recreation and Public Health Memorandum of Understanding to fight against the obesity epidemic that includes the Department of Transportation, Health and Human Services, the Department of Interior, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service. Our "Trails for Health" publication outlines the benefits to public health through recreation. Take the public health message and leverage it to further your agenda. There’s money out there to be had by doing so. Ex: you can tie volunteerism to the recommended 30 minutes of daily physical activity.

Also, we need to reach out to groups that work with under-represented populations. As African-American males, we often don’t see outdoor recreation as something we do, not because the interest isn’t there, but because of access issues.
Jody Brooks, Center for Disease Control

Hunters are have long been involved with outdoors through hunting licenses, voting to protect access, taxes on their arms and ammunition, etc. Hunting is still relevant in today’s world as a use of public lands and it is compatible with other outdoor activities. Some of our concerns are lack of quality management for wildlife, loss of open space, change of ownership in private lands leads to loss in access to the public lands, and unmanaged recreation. Hunters will continue to be great allies for outdoor recreation as long as they have access to public lands.
Joel Pedersen, National Wild Turkey Federation

In a letter from her fifteen-year-old son Josh and his friends "GEEKS in the Woods": we’re young, but we are people. Whatever you liked about nature, we’ll probably like it too, but make it relevant to us. We won’t ask our parents to take us out on a hike, but we want them to keep asking us to go. We recognize sincerity. Pay attention to our wants and needs. Experience nature with us even if you’ve done it before. Make it fun! We like technology, but we don’t need it to have fun outdoors.
Renee Morrison, Jacksonville State University field schools

The Forests don’t have funds for their own trail crews anymore, so volunteer users are doing it. Their organizations also provide the experienced people to take others out on the lands. It's important to remember the social aspect of recreation, that’s how you get more people out. The large organizations can also bring political support; they are here to partner and want to help.
Kent Wimmer, USFS and Florida National Scenic Trail

There aren’t a lot of youth out there working on the trails. We should make more youth on the trails a goal.
Larry Wheat, GPTA

Everyone loves sports, but not everyone can be a football or basketball player. Our "Archery in the School" program works with USFWS, and schools that have implemented the program have seen an increase in attendance rates.
Captain James Bell, Hunter Education Coordinator for State of Georgia

There needs to be mass awareness, particularly for the minority populations, in terms of connecting people to the outdoors. There’s a great connectivity between nature and the power to inspire, heal, and educate. If people of color aren’t involved in the public lands, it becomes down to taxation without representation, but if people don’t know what is out there, how can they experience it? There’s so much history about what minorities have contributed to the public land system, but this history is largely unknown. It's no wonder the outdoors have come to be seen as a "white thing." A white organization sending white representatives to speak to a minority group is not the best way to spread the message. Marketing needs to happen. McDonald’s and Nike don’t advertize because people don’t know about them, they do it to maintain stock share. Often, people don’t even know about the park system.

Also, we simply aren’t visible to kids. We aren’t in their school like the Armed Forces. Kids looking for opportunities. We need marketing that includes the diversity of the nation for many reasons. Kids of color need to think we are talking to them. Young people who we’re targeting need to see people who look like them from their own communities who have the passion and are already doing this work. Whites need to understand that their park constituency is changing. All Americans belong in the outdoors. Parks can be used to fight prejudice and racism in this country. Let's publicize the histories of different ethnic groups and their involvement in the development of this nation’s public lands.

The fact that outreach programs are the first to go when funding gets cut needs to change. It says a great deal about your priorities as an organization.

Illai Kenney, who formed "Georgia Kids Against Pollution," was the youngest delegate to the World Summit on Sustainable Energy in Johannesburg in 2003 at age 18. She has said, "The greatest environmental problem is poverty and the solution to every problem is love."

The missing link between public land managers and recreation providers is the grassroots leadership in the communities you are trying to reach.
Audrey Peterman, President, Earthwise Production, Inc.

Here in the South is the first time neighboring states have created a "Good Neighbors" campaign. You’ll see advertizing for Georgia in Alabama and vice versa.

How do we make public land use hot? Television. Summit your ideas for possible PSAs to this blog and name some celebrities you’d like to see represent this idea.

We need gimmicks. The passport system should be integrated into a universal program which includes municipalities and public lands.
Pete Conroy, Director, Jacksonville State University’s Field Schools

We need to stop drawing the line in the sand between good guys and bad guys. There’s value in recreation in all it’s forms. Recreation protects mental and physical health. We need to look for unusual partners. Ex: Beef Council is linking itself to active lifestyles.
Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition

History and Archeology groups need to be involved in the effort. We also need to reach out to the tribal organizations who have a great deal of health problems, but also a historical connection to the land.
Melissa Twaroski, USFS Southern Region