California outdoor recreation worth $54 billion per year: federal data | Kiowa County Press

(California Information Service) California is primary within the nation for {dollars} spent on tenting, mountaineering, climbing, and biking, in line with the newest federal information.

The most up-to-date report from the Bureau of Financial Evaluation additionally names boating and RV journeys because the state’s most profitable outside sector.

Katie Hawkins, California program supervisor for the nonprofit Out of doors Alliance, stated outside recreation added $862 billion to the nationwide financial system in 2021.

“Out of doors recreation is 1.6 p.c of the state’s GDP,” Hawkins reported. “It employs round 517,000 folks, and accounts for $54 billion in spending.”

Advocates are asking Congress to move America’s Out of doors Recreation Act, and the PUBLIC Lands Act. The latter would add wilderness safety to greater than 600,000 acres of land and defend greater than 580 miles of rivers within the Northwest a part of the state, the central coast, and in Southern California.

Opponents say present protections are adequate and warn further rules might stifle financial exercise in mining, logging, and oil and fuel.

Hawkins countered the payments would assist California attain its objective of defending 30 p.c of the land and water by the yr 2030, which might assist with the combat in opposition to international warming and sea degree rise, as a result of undisturbed land sequesters carbon.

“Right here in California, now we have seen firsthand the profound results of local weather change with the more and more extreme wildfire seasons, drought, and warmth waves,” Hawkins noticed.

Conservation teams are urgent lawmakers to deliver the payments up for a vote through the lame-duck session, earlier than the tip of the yr.

Help for this reporting was supplied by The Pew Charitable Trusts.