Editor’s note: This commentary is by Owen Milne, who is the executive director of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center and resides in Burlington.
There is this old saying in the world of forest conservation: “If you want to save a forest, build a trail.”
A recent land use study conducted by the National Park Service of three rail trails — an urban trail in California, a suburban trail in Florida, and a rural trail in Iowa — found that trail use pumped between $1.2 and $1.9 million annually into the economies of nearby communities.
This sort of shift of value from extraction (logging, farming, mining) to recreation is a significant contributing factor to what made it possible for us Vermonters to save our forests.
Many experts in the field of forest conservation deeply understand the direct correlation between recreation and preventing future deforestation in Vermont. The return on investment from protecting open space for public benefit from ecosystem services of water filtration, climate change protection, and other aspects of conserving public open space is estimated to be 100 to 1, according to a study by the Gund Institute for Ecological Economies at the University of Vermont.
But we don’t have a forest crisis in Vermont anymore, we have a clean water crisis.
We spent an estimated $66 million to clean up Lake Champlain between 2016 and 2018. In a 2017 report by Vermont state Treasurer Beth Pearce, cleanup costs for Lake Champlain require an estimated $1 billion or more in the next 20 years.
If you live anywhere near Lake Champlain, or Lake Carmi, or Lake Iroquois, or Lake Memphremagog, or Townshend Lake, you are likely to have a very tangible understanding of the scale of our cyanobacteria, invasive species and microplastics issues.
There’s perhaps a time or two where many of us have had to change our recreational plans because of hazardous water quality conditions.
While longer, warmer summers brought about by climate change may seem like a nice reprieve, these conditions may exacerbate algae blooms in our lakes. It’s not just during July and August anymore, either. In fall 2017, there were a number of cyanobacteria blooms that plagued Lake Champlain in multiple spots across the basin.
The Lake Champlain Basin Program’s 2018 State of the Lake Report stated a number of alarming findings, including new types of bacteria.
Despite the toxification of our lakes, most public and private investment in public recreation is still spent in activities related to trails, forests and mountains, not for water-based recreation. When the statewide oversight body responsible for investment in recreation is known as the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, it isn’t hard to understand why most of our recreation funding is focused on trails, forests and parks. Not surprisingly, the recent board members for the newly established VOREC (Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative) are almost entirely associated with the trails, skiing and related industries. Skiing and hiking are significant contributors to our state economy; however, if recreation is such a powerful tool for stewardship, why are we not focusing more public access towards our degrading water ecosystems?
The same is as true for the private sector foundation support of recreation and public access in Vermont. It is only within the last five years that most environmental foundations in Vermont are beginning to invest in water quality projects. The majority of these donations and grants go towards educating the public of the importance of water quality, research, or hands-on cleanup efforts, but not towards recreation.
The science that supports the correlation between forest conservation and trails holds as true for water as it does for land. A study in the 2011 Journal of Sustainable Tourism showed a direct correlation between recreation and mindsets that favor environmental conservation. This particular study was conducted on tourists visiting wetlands and on-water areas along the shore in Taiwan. The outcomes make logical sense. If someone loves to walk through a forest on a trail, and the forest is clear cut, then the individual has a tangible and emotional reason for action. If someone enjoys a morning swim in their nearby lake, and the water becomes too toxic, then the individual has an equally tangible and emotional reason for action.
There are also scores of additional studies that show something many of us Vermonters already know, any type of recreation builds our attachment to this place. To take it a step further, in his recent book “Blue Mind,” Wallace J. Nichols studies the intense affinity our brains and bodies have for water. He found that, on average, people place higher value on property that has a view of water over any mountain, pasture, clearing or landscape attribute. People will pay more “green” for a little more blue. It is possible for us to deepen the public’s connections to water, and doing so has proven to be a powerful tool for advocacy and conservation.
You do not need to be in charge of a multi-million dollar state budget or run a $10 million conservation foundation to help get people connected to water. You also don’t need to become a cyanobacteria expert or an ecologist to make a difference. We have plenty of experts. Getting involved can be as easy as trying out some activity in or on water. Learn how to fly fish, or teach your kids to swim, go kayaking with a friend or hop on a coworker’s boat for an evening. If you are able to make financial contributions of any amount to impact water quality, there are a multitude of organizations that focus on getting people out to enjoy our lakes, rivers, ponds and streams. Every connection you help to make between people and water strengthens our cultural ties to this critically important natural resource.
If we do not consider investing in water recreation, there will come a day where we take walks along perfectly maintained trails through pristine forests to the tops of our majestic mountains where we will take in the view of our toxic rivers and putrid lakes.
