“C
onnecting people to our lands is personally important to me,” said President Obama at the White House Conference on Conservation held in early March. The conference, convened by the President and his cabinet, was titled Growing America’s Outdoor Heritage and Economy.
The idea was to involve leaders in the conservation community in a discussion about progress made by the America’s Great Outdoors initiative -- one Obama launched to “develop a 21st century conservation and recreation agenda” -- strategies for growing that success.
I was honored to receive an invitation to speak during a breakout panel on youth and outdoor education.
In attending the conference, I was glad to see a continued focus on connecting people to the outdoors, the prime focus of Sierra Club’s Mission Outdoors.
Since the inception of the Great Outdoors initiative two years ago, Mission Outdoors has taken this opportunity to not only educate leaders about the growing divide between people and nature, but to encourage this issue’s inclusion as a major pillar of the administration’s conservation platform.
We organized youth leaders to attend the listening sessions, developed recommendations about reconnecting youth with the outdoors for Sierra Club’s vision document, worked with our partners at the Outdoors Alliance for Kids to support the first lady’s Lets Move Outside initiative, and much more.
That’s why I was so happy to hear the administration emphasizing over and over the importance of getting outdoors, not only for individuals, but for the conservation movement and the American economy.
Overcoming this disconnect from nature is vital to the future of conservation in America. Sierra Club is bringing over a century of experience to bear in overcoming the barriers to getting outdoors today.
I highlighted how we are supporting the initiative by getting about 250,000 people outdoors every year!
But I also called on the administration and the conservation community to work together to find solutions to the barriers that are keeping people indoors.
To my surprise and excitement, President Obama joined the conference to give the closing remarks. As a speaker, I was again honored with a seat in the front of the house, and an opportunity to shake the President’s hand after his speech.
During his remarks, the President again emphasized the economic power of getting outdoors:
“[We need] the kind of ideas that preserve our environment, protect our bottom line, and connect more Americans to the great outdoors.”
But it was his comments about the personal effect the outdoors has had on him that stayed with me. The president spoke movingly of his first trip to Yellowstone National Park, and how inspired he was when he later repeated that experience with his own children.
That inspiration drives his current commitment to preserving those experiences for future Americans.
“And that is what we have to fight for. That’s what’s critical, is making sure that we’re always there to bequeath that gift to the next generation...I’ll do everything I can to help protect our economy but also protect this amazing planet that we love and this great county that we’ve been blessed with.”
Mr. President, I couldn’t agree more. Tiffany Saleh is a Mission Outdoors Outreach Representative for the Sierra Club.