The Daily - June 10,2022 - 31

LEFT TO RIGHT: SCOTT MARTIN, LAUREN DANILEK
ARE OUTDOOR RECREATION AND
CONSERVATION CLOSE-KNIT ALLIES
WORKING TOGETHER IN HARMONY?
OR ARE THEY SOMETHING ELSE
ALTOGETHER? ARE THEY FRENEMIES?
ARE THEY FRIENDS AT ALL?
in Outdoor, the whole thing is just
pickle ball and car campers.
One specific example of this is
the Confluence of States Accords,
which included conservation
and stewardship as priority
one. This foundational outdoor
recreation advocacy document
has been signed by 13 states
and has also been used almost
verbatim by many of them as the
framework for their own outdoor
recreation offices or initiatives.
One result of that foundational
framework has been the embrace
of 30x30 goals by many key
outdoor groups such as Outdoor
Industry Association.
IF SOMEONE'S GOAL WERE ACTUally
to drive a wedge between
outdoor recreation and conservation,
it would be a wildly counterproductive
strategy. If you were
to pick one business community
that would be your best bet to help
support conservation goals and
stimulate growth of new conservationists,
it seems like the outdoor
industry would be high-if not the
highest by far-on the list. The
idea of an actual conflict between
the conservation and outdoor
recreation communities feels like
a big myth of its own, in the same
vein as the ongoing trope of the
" skier vs. snowboarders " rivalry,
which is increasingly just an older
generation's way of express its conThe
Conservation
Alliance's
Backdoor
Collective
gets
dirty.
cern about new faces on previously
wide-open terrain.
All that said, it's certainly not
perfect out there. Across the
country, there's an ever-widening
gap between the impacts of
those who use and the benefits of
those who give back. There's also
a rapidly proliferating community
of businesses who are wearing
the outdoor costume without any
semblance of outdoor context (or
ethos). One tiny example: on a
recent United flight, the plasticwrapped-in-plastic
snack box featured
the sporty image of Nordic
walkers in front of a cascading
waterfall.
There are also significant negative
impacts that will result from
misunderstanding the roles and
intersections of outdoor recreation
and conservation. Outdoor
recreation is not a find-and-replace
term for conservation, nor
does it have an instantaneous effect
on local conservation. It's not
an " Easy " button that takes people
from a whiff of fresh air and a
fish on the line to service project
volunteerism and minting checks
to their local land trust. It takes
more than that, and in the grand
scheme of things, the outdoor
recreation community has both a
huge advantage as well as an obligation
to embrace the challenge
of educating users of all kinds,
because, well, we're the closest.
In the same way that the outdoor
sector needs all levels of conservation,
it also needs all levels of people
to make it work, from super-fluent
outdoor policy wonks to first-day
beginners, from national advocacy
groups to state OBAs, from federal
decision makers to local land
managers. The outdoor sector also
needs to think further forward on
conservation support than the next
fiscal year's line item. For example,
while many outdoor recreation
groups have listed a commitment
to 30x30 as a policy priority, how
many have thought through what
that would look like, exactly, in
their part of the sector, or in their
part of the world?
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM here?
Is it enough for outdoor recreation
communities to better understand
the role they play in both supporting
and undermining conservation?
Is it enough for the conservation
community to better understand
the role that a potentially intimate
ally can play from within a growing
and politically popular business
sector?
Sometimes, the best thing to come
out of throwing outdoor recreation
under the bus is the stimulation of a
broader conservation.
Drew Simmons is the founder
and president of Pale Morning
Media, a strategic communications
and public relations agency
based in Waitsfield, Vermont.
His writing can be found at
wickedoutdoorsy.com.
OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2022 /
31
http://www.wickedoutdoorsy.com
The Daily - June 10,2022

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