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DENVER, Colorado — Missoula, Montana-based digital map company onX has partnered with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) and announced its efforts to create a Landlocked State Lands Report. The announcement, which came Wednesday at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Denver, Colorado, was made by onX Founder Eric Siegfried and TRCP Center for Western Lands Director Joel Webster.
The Landlocked State Lands Report will follow in the footsteps of the 2018 Landlocked Public Lands Report, which revealed that more than 9.52 million acres of public land are inaccessible to Americans in the West. The new report delves deeper into landlocked lands at the state level and will be formally presented to the press and public at the TRCP Western Media Summit, to be held August 18-21, 2019, in Seattle, Washington.
The report notes that public land access is the engine that drives an outdoor recreation economy worth more than $887 billion in consumer spending, with $62.5 billion in Colorado alone. This state-level report details landlocked public lands in 11 of the Western states, utilizing an algorithm developed by onX to identify landlocked public state lands throughout these states.
At Outdoor Retailer, Siegfried and Webster presented initial Colorado landlocked state lands findings to the media at a press briefing June 19. These findings show Colorado is home to 435,000 total landlocked acres, as well as an additional 1.78 million acres accessible to the public yet closed to hunting. Siegfried and Webster revealed several more numbers, all of which will be detailed in the full report due to be released in August.
This press briefing was followed by an access-themed panel at Outdoor Retailer on Thursday, June 20, where Siegfried, KEEN Advocacy Manager Erin Gaines, New Belgium Brewing Director of Social and Environmental Impact Katie Wallace and Nathan Fey, Director of the Colorado Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry, spoke to the changing challenges of access in a modern outdoor world.
When speaking about how access opportunities influence communities Fey noted, “Access leads to ethics, which leads to interest, which leads to leadership.” The panel covered topics ranging from funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, how community projects impact the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts and the opportunity for the greater outdoor industry to band together with a strong voice for access issues.
Siegfried urged the audience to become the local champions for access in their communities, noting there any many local-level success stories, but many communities are still waiting for leadership in local access issues.
The full release of the Landlocked State Lands Report will occur in August at the TRCP Media Summit, and will be available to the public at www.UnlockingPublicLands.org.
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About onX
Founded in 2009, onX’s maps encompass 985 million acres of public land and more than 121 million private properties. Hunters and outdoorsmen are able to use their mobile phones as a GPS, tracking their movements, delving through different topographic maps with unique applications for hunting, fishing, hiking and more. Those maps are accessible via a membership or can be used on a traditional GPS device with a purchased, pre-loaded chip.
By providing people the best and most up-to-date data and GPS technology in the palm of their hand, onX seeks to help people have the best outdoor experience possible. Download onX here.
CONTACT:
Eric Whiting, Backbone Media
970-963-4873, ext. 170