The Chaffee Recreation Council released a county-wide recreation report Monday that looks deeply into a resident and visitor opinion survey administered by Envision Chaffee County.
“Everyone who lives and visits here treasures the stunning, unspoiled Colorado landscapes and amazing outdoor recreation,” Envision Co-lead Cindy Williams said. “The new Chaffee Recreation Report shows that Chaffee County is not on the path to retaining these exceptional natural assets and experiences, due to insufficient planning and resources to manage that rapid growth.”
In short, a lot of people believe their recreation resources here are overused.
The report works within three community goals as the county grows:
- Sustain the economic benefits of recreation tourism;
- Maintain healthy forests, waters, wildlife, and working lands;
- Retain Chaffee County’s exceptional outdoor experiences.
Thousands of survey responses show that half of the residents and a third of the county’s visitors believe their outdoor experiences have declined due to the negative impacts of growing use, citing “over-use” and “irresponsible” use as the top reasons.
Natural resources received the lowest score due to negative trends in forest health and declining wildlife populations related in part to recreation use.
The 23-member council is developing an all-lands recreation plan by mid-2021 to put new management strategies into place, addressing the negative impacts of growing use.
Outdoor use grew by an estimated 13 percent a year from 2015 to 2019, according to an analysis of visitor spending for the Colorado Tourism Office (CTO), which also indicates that up to four million people are visiting the county annually.
Travelers spent $128 million in Chaffee County last year, according to the CTO data, contributing to a 53 percent increase in tourism activity since 2016 and $8.6 million in additional wages and business income during that time.
Data is not yet available for 2020, but anecdotal information from public land and city recreation managers indicate a steep change in growth occurred during this summer due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and people “escaping” to the outdoors.
The report shows that agency funding per recreation user has declined 40 percent since 2016.
“As use grows, the cost to maintain roads, trails, and restrooms, clean up trash, enforce rules and educate people increases, too,” said Williams. “The council is working with the community to propose solutions to these challenges through the Chaffee Recreation Plan so the county can change the trajectory.”
The Chaffee Recreation Survey collected data from 3,863 people engaged in all kinds of outdoor activities from primitive backcountry to in-town recreation. More than 17,000 write-in comments were submitted by respondents who broke out about equally by location :
Location %
County residents 36%
In-state visitors 30%
Tourists from 41 different states 34 %
“The number of write-in comments shows how much people care about recreation here,” Williams said. “All of the feedback was taken very seriously as we read and categorized every one.”
The survey found strong support for a variety of proposed management actions that could achieve the outlined goals. For example, 88 percent of survey respondents support limiting new recreation development in areas most critical to wildlife. Additional actions receiving support are enforcement to encourage better user behaviors, new dispersed camping policies and efforts to clean up trash and evidence of human waste, Williams said.
The Chaffee Recreation Council is comprised of community leaders representing land agencies, local governments, business, and citizens. Envision facilitates the council’s planning activities and engages the community to be involved in the final plan.
Go to envisionchaffeecounty.org/recreation-in-balance/ to read the Chaffee Recreation Report, find more information about the survey results, and learn how to get involved in the planning process.
View the Chaffee Recreation Report.
View the Chaffee Recreation Survey.
Recent Comments