Don’t poo-poo these states’ pleas to keep the parks pristine
Erika Bolstad | Stateline | August 15, 2023
https://stateline.org/2023/08/15/dont-poo-poo-these-states-pleas-to-keep-the-parks-pristine
Earlier this summer, Adam Ducharme made an unpleasant discovery while helping volunteers install signs telling visitors where to camp, park or launch boats near Leadville, a mountain town surrounded by 14,000-foot peaks in central Colorado.
“We were digging holes, putting in signs, and then backfilling the holes with rocks and sort of compounding it with dirt,” Ducharme said. “And every third rock that I picked up to put into the hole had human waste on it.”
Ducharme, the region’s first tourism director, was hired last year to not only market the area, but also to help manage the effects of throngs of visitors who have descended on the scenic state after outdoor recreation boomed during the pandemic.
To address sustainability concerns, Colorado is the first state to fold what tourism officials call a “destination stewardship” department into its state-level tourism office, said Hayes Norris, the communications manager at the Colorado Tourism Office.
Most states welcome visitors, who are vital to their economies — in Pennsylvania, for example, 124 state parks attract 40 million visitors annually, according to the governor’s office. Outdoor recreation adds an estimated $14 billion annually to the Pennsylvania economy and supports 150,000 jobs, the state said. But the economic benefits are accompanied by crowds that can degrade the natural resources of fragile ecosystems.
There’s even evidence of human waste in the regional groundwater supply in and around Leadville, Ducharme said. One of his tourism counterparts in Ouray, a high-altitude Colorado town with a population of 923 known as the Switzerland of America, said officials no longer actively promote their summer season because they are at capacity. Instead, they try to draw people year-round to lessen the impact of one season, and they focus on encouraging responsible tourism among their existing visitors.
“Summertime, we don’t really necessarily promote coming to Ouray,” said Kailey Rhoten, the tourism and destination marketing director for the city. “We promote what you can do when you’re in Ouray. Summertime is when I’m actually going out in the field, meeting people. That’s when we’re hitting it the hardest with more of that educational piece.”
Tackling overuse
The outdoor recreation boom was already on the rise before people sought socially distant fun during the early days of the pandemic. But it has been exacerbated by heavy use as people continue to plan hikes, pitch tents and seek out lakes and rivers during the extreme heat events that are now part of most American summers. Often, that recreation is in places that haven’t had adequate budgets for maintenance or staff, said Marci Mowery, president of the nonprofit Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation.
In Pennsylvania — where all state parks and parking are free — there’s an effort to direct people to less-visited parks or trails, Mowery said. Their volunteers also have been actively teaching some visitors about Leave No Trace principles, which are a framework of minimum impact practices for anyone visiting the outdoors.
“We need to educate people that there are other alternatives and to have an alternative in their pocket,” Mowery said. “So if they show up at a very popular trailhead, rather than making their own parking space and wedging themselves in, to go to another trail in the state park system or in the forest or in a nearby park.”
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