#5 - Public lands benefit the economy of the West.

“The quality of life offered by the experience of wild lands attracts people who want to move to our community. It attracts tourism visitors and it also attracts people who appreciate it so much they decide to relocate their businesses here, which diversifies our economy.”
  Carol Waller – Executive Director Sun Valley Chamber

Vast expanses of open space are one of the defining characteristics of the West. More than half the region’s land is in public ownership and managed by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In mountainous regions, some counties are eighty percent publicly owned, and some in states like Arizona and Nevada are more than ninety percent.

In the West, the presence of public lands in a county is good for the economy. Personal income, adjusted for inflation, grows faster in counties where more than 60 percent of the land is in federal ownership (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Park Service, etc.), compared to counties with less than 10 percent of their land base in public ownership.

While public lands appear to stimulate growth in personal income in counties around the West, counties with public lands protected from development show an even more marked increase. Counties where more than 60 percent of the federal public lands are in protected status (Wilderness, National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, National Monuments, etc.) have grown 66 percent faster from 1970 to 2000 than counties where the same percentage of public land had no permanent protective status.

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, 2004. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Information system (REIS CD-ROM). Washington, D.C. In addition, original data sets used for Public Lands Conservation and Economic Well-Being (www.sonoran.org).

Wilderness, National Parks, National Monuments and other protected public lands set aside for their wild land characteristics can and do play an important role in stimulating economic growth. In effect, p rotected public lands can be a competitive advantage for many Western counties.

Wild, public lands have biological, intrinsic, historical and cultural value. They also have tremendous economic value. One of the more direct economics benefits of our public lands can be seen in the amount of revenue generated from hunters and anglers.

• Hunters and anglers have generated more than $10 billion through recreation-related licenses, taxes and fees to support federal, state and private-sector conservation.
• The economic impact of hunting and angling and related industries in the West is significant, adding nearly $3 billion in 2001 to the combined economies of Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Conservation of public lands in the West is critical to attracting and retaining these revenues.

The number of hunters and anglers in the nation in 2001 was 38 million, and overall they contributed nearly $70 billion to the national economy, including $276 million on lodging alone. More than revenues from licenses, taxes and fees, sportsmen also “pay to play,” spending an average of $1,851 annually on hunting and fishing activities, according to a 2001 study by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (IAFWA). Protected public lands, such as wilderness and roadless areas, often provide the best fish and wildlife habitat and therefore give a competitive advantage to Western counties with such lands.

• Source: Backcountry Bounty: Hunters, Anglers and Prosperity in the American West, 2006. See www.sonoran.org/programs/socioeconomics/backcountry_bounty.html.