President Obama will kick off a White House Conference on Americas Great Outdoors on Friday, April 16, 2010 that is expected to include several leaders from the outdoor industry, the White House media office confirmed.
“Americas outdoors are part of our national identity. They are the farms, ranches and forests that we take great pride in, and the neighborhood parks, trails and fields where we spend memorable time with our families and friends, said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Too many of these places are disappearing. In launching this conversation, we strive to learn about the smart, creative community efforts underway throughout the country to conserve our outdoor spaces, and hear how we can support these efforts.
Across the country, Americans are working to protect the places they know and love, from the streams they fished as children and the parks where families gather together to the battlefields and buildings that tell Americas story, said Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior. The Conference is a great chance to learn about these efforts, start a new dialogue about conservation in America, and find ways to further the work that is already going on in cities and towns, counties and states throughout the country.
There is no doubt that we face serious challenges to our natural resources: climate change, air and water pollution, a lost connection between some Americans and the outdoors, and a fragmentation and loss of open space, said Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. We believe that the best way to answer these challenges is to work with landowners, conservation groups, sportsmen and women, local communities, and state and local governments to conserve Americas great outdoors, and in doing so, reconnect Americans to our forests, working lands and public lands.
This conference will bring together leaders from communities across the country that are working to protect their outdoor spaces. Participants will include working ranchers and farmers, sportsmen and women, State and local government leaders, Tribal leaders, public lands experts, conservationists, youth leaders, business representatives and others who view the outdoors as integral to their communities. Several outdoor executives are expected to be in attendance for the event, which takes place just four days before Outdoor Industry Association leads a delegation of executives to Washington for its annual lobbying trip.
The discussion will center on the conservation opportunities in communities, the challenges facing them, and the innovative solutions they are crafting from the bottom up.
The conference will offer an opportunity for participants to engage with each other, learn from past and ongoing efforts, communicate how the Federal Government can support these efforts, and identify new opportunities to work together to modernize our approach to conservation, and reinvigorate the national conversation about our outdoors.
