For Immediate Release
July 15, 2010

Washington, D.C.—On Friday, July 16 the Obama Administration will visit Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado as part of the Americas’ Great Outdoors Listening Tour. The administration wants to learn more about conservation, recreation, and reconnecting people to the outdoors. The Grand Junction listening session will be held from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Two Rivers Convention Center. The Denver session will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Denver West Marriott Hotel. A special session to bring young people into the conversation will be held in Denver from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Denver Marriott West.

“American children spend increasingly less time doing much of anything outdoors and this is likely contributing to some of the most disturbing children’s health issues, including obesity, diabetes, and attention disorders,” says Shawna Crocker, Project Learning Tree Coordinator with the Colorado State Forest Service, who will attend tomorrow’s sessions in Denver. “Furthermore, if children are detached from nature, how will they learn about, understand, and value nature? People only protect what they love so the danger becomes the fact that the next generation will not care about the land and be stewards of its resources,” she said.

Crocker and her Colorado statewide network of Project Learning Tree (PLT) facilitators provide teachers and other educators with training, curriculum materials, and other support to bring quality environmental education into the classroom, and their students into the outdoors. Each year in Colorado, more than 600 educators attend 40 PLT professional development workshops.

Project Learning Tree, the national environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation, employs hands-on, interdisciplinary activities, combined with place-based learning, inquiry-based investigations, and service-learning projects to help our youth think critically about issues affecting the health and sustainability of our planet. Studies have shown environmental education increases student engagement in learning and raises test scores, as well as engaging kids in environmental and natural resource careers.

“Our schools need more encouragement, resources, and time to devote attention to environmental education,” said Crocker. The Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education and the Colorado Department of Education are working on a state environmental literacy plan to ensure all kids are environmentally literate when they graduate from high school. “That’s good news,” said Crocker, “but we’ll need funding to help schools train their teachers to incorporate environmental education into their everyday lesson plans with their students, and develop the confidence and skills to take their students outdoors to learn.” If enacted, the No Child Left Inside Act (S. 866/H.R. 2054) which incorporates environmental education into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, formerly known as No Child Left Behind, could address this issue.

Donna and Oliver Moore, Tree Farmers in Loveland, Colorado, submitted comments to the administration today in advance of tomorrow’s listening sessions. “We applaud the administration for their efforts to create a conservation agenda that recognizes a broad range of interests and perspectives, a key part of which should be to truly conserve America’s family-owned forests – which make up more than a third of America’s forested great outdoors. We love our land and are committed to managing the forests sustainably and for future generations, however, as private landowners, we face some challenges.”

“Finding markets for our wood that are within financially feasible distances is difficult,” said the Moores, members of the American Tree Farm System. For 21 years the Moores have managed their 45 acres and live on their property. “We are passionate about seeing a healthy forest in which we have the privilege of living. We sell firewood, fir boughs for Christmas decorations, and Christmas trees allowing us to just about break even each year if we do not charge for our labor. Utilizing wood as biomass is very promising, but finding a market and transporting the wood or chips presents problems.”

From maintaining roads, to controlling invasive species, to protecting the forest from catastrophic wildfires, proper management is costly and requires dedication. “We live in an area with about 100 properties averaging 35 acres, and we and our neighbors rely on grants to create fuelbreaks, mitigate fire, improve the defensible space around homes, remove dwarf mistletoe, and protect our trees from Mountain pine beetles,” said the Moores. “The assistance provided by USDA cost share programs is extremely valuable, we just need to find ways to get it to more landowners--and more simply.”

Ken and Lois Carpenter, 2009 Western Regional Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year, own 190 acres in La Plata County. Their family forest is a wildlife habitat and blue ribbon trout stream. “We open our doors to the community to teach about being good stewards of the forest,” said Ken Carpenter.

Following the Missionary Ridge Fire, the Carpenters had to dig deep to find the money to reforest thirty acres and care for the seven thousand Ponderosa Pine, Blue Spruce and Douglas Fir trees they planted. A mudslide carrying silt, ash, rocks and trees blocked the flow of a river, and the Carpenters built a small dam to keep silt from continuing to pollute the Los Pinos River. “We experienced a one hundred percent loss of fish in a blue ribbon trout fishery when the mud and ash filled the river following the fire. It was very difficult to get help, but we did eventually secure a small grant that went some way towards clearing tons of debris,” said Ken.

“Although we have put our land in a trust for our children, we are very concerned that federal estate taxes may force our children to sell the land or clear cut the timber to pay taxes,” said Ken Carpenter. If enacted, H.R. 5475, The Family Farm Estate Tax Relief Act of 2010 introduced by rep. Mike Thompson (R-CA), could address this issue.

“The Obama Administration is undertaking important efforts to develop a conservation agenda worthy of the 21st century and to reconnect Americans with our great outdoors. We encourage the administration to invest in environmental education, and consider a broad range of market-oriented tools, tax incentives, and conservation investments to truly conserve America’s family-owned forests—which make up 35 percent of all forestland in the United States,” said Tom Martin, president and CEO of the American Forest Foundation.

“Providing essential benefits such as clean water, wildlife habitat, carbon storage and recreation to millions of citizens, family forests are fundamental to maintaining America’s conservation ethic and reconnecting people with nature,” said Martin. “Smart choices about the use of our natural resources, including investments in our forests that can provide renewable energy and climate mitigation, are dependent on an environmentally literate citizenry and workforce.”

The American Forest Foundation (AFF) is a nonprofit conservation organization that works to stem the loss of America’s woodlands by helping family forest landowners manage their land for clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation, and wood products. AFF works to ensure decision makers and educators understand the value of America's woodlands through environmental education and outreach efforts that bring outdoor learning to children and adults across the country.

The American Tree Farm System®, a program of AFF, is the oldest and largest private sustainable forestry program in the United States. We are a network of 91,000 landowners managing 24.3 million acres of woodlands with the assistance from 4,679 volunteers and partners. Project Learning Tree®, AFF’s environmental education program, provides quality curriculum materials and training in environmental education to 30,000 educators across the country every year. For more information, visit www.forestfoundation.org.