Close to 200 events are planned now through Sunday at California state parks for the third annual State Parks Week. The events advance Gov. Gavin Newsom's "Outdoor Access for All" initiative.

"There's truly something for everyone," said Jessica Carter, director of parks and public engagement at the Save the Redwoods League, one of the presenting partners alongside California State Parks. "There are hikes, guided tours, art events, paddleboarding, yoga, horseback riding and lots more."

California's newest state park, Dos Rios, just opened this week in the Central Valley outside Modesto. There are 280 locations within the state park system. Find out more about events in your area on the website CAStateParksWeek.org.

Jorge Moreno, a California State Parks information officer, said the programs promote the multitude of benefits that come from spending time in nature.

"Each day has a different theme - like explore new experiences, nourish your health and well-being, climate resilience," he said. "On Saturday, celebrate community and culture. And then on Sunday, care for our land."

The tagline for this year's festivities is, "This is where you live" - to encourage all Californians to get out into nature and enjoy these public outdoor spaces.

June is Great Outdoors Month, which underscores the importance of outdoor recreation in Idaho.

As temperatures warm up, people are enjoying nature. Five years ago, Congress designated June Great Outdoors Month to highlight the trove of outside opportunities across the nation. With a half dozen national parks and monuments and also state parks, Idaho has a plethora of places for people to get outside.

Whitney Potter Schwartz, senior vice president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, said businesses help support such opportunities.

"Many outdoor recreation businesses are small businesses that are really the cornerstones of communities across the country," Potter Schwartz pointed out. "Rural communities especially."

Outdoor recreation generates $3.4 billion in Idaho, according to the roundtable, and supports 36,000 jobs. Nationally, outdoor recreation accounts for 2.2% of the country's GDP.

Potter Schwartz emphasized getting outdoors is proven to be good for people's health and her organization wants to ensure everyone has access.

"There's so many benefits," Potter Schwartz asserted. "Whether that's health benefits, economic benefits, to being outside that we really, truly believe everyone should have that opportunity, regardless of your background or ability, to really experience it and enjoy nature."

The month recognizing the outdoors started as Great Outdoors Week under President Bill Clinton in 1998.


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New Mexico's Gila Wilderness is special - not only for its natural beauty, but also because it received the world's first-ever "wilderness" designation, 100 years ago today.

Conservation groups are working to preserve the Gila for future generations, while also keeping it open to hunters and those who fish its abundant waters.

Elle Benson is the Rio Grande program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Born and raised in the town of Gila, population 175, Benson knows the area well.

"The Gila Wilderness is our state's largest wilderness area," said Benson. "It has the headwaters of the Gila. Whitewater Baldy is the highest peak within the Gila Wilderness - it's just under 11,000 feet in elevation."

Benson said much of the partnership's federal funding goes to smaller watershed collaboratives doing state restoration work.

Conservationists, along with local and state representatives, have been trying for nearly a decade to get Congress to pass the MH Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic River Act - which would protect nearly 450 miles of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers and their tributaries.

Much of the credit for the 1924 Gila Wilderness designation - 40 years before Congress passed the Wilderness Act - goes to Aldo Leopold, often called the father of wildlife ecology and modern conservation.

Benson said it was Leopold proposed setting aside the 755,000 acres while working as a forest supervisor in New Mexico.

"There's recreation that happens out there because of the biodiversity," said Benson, "so, hunting, fishing, camping, backpacking, horseback riding, etc. And I've seen coatimundi out there."

If you're not familiar with the coatimundi, it's a mammal that looks like a combination of lemur and monkey, but is officially part of the raccoon family.

Several New Mexico events will commemorate the 100 year anniversary, including the Gila River Festival, starting on September 27.

An update to the 30-year-old Northwest Forest Plan is expected soon. The plan has a been a critical tool for managing 19 million acres of federal forest lands in Oregon, California and Washington. In December, the U.S. Forest Service announced its intent to amend the plan, with a draft environment impact statement expected for release this summer.

Susan Jane Brown, chief legal counsel for the Oregon-based nonprofit environmental law firm Silvix Resources, said the biggest threat to forests when the plan was adopted in 1994 was logging.

"Today, it is much more about climate change and drought and insects and uncharacteristic wildfires that are a threat to these forests. So, we need to revise our expectations of how we're going to manage these lands," she explained.

Brown said the original plan came after years of clearcutting in the region's forests. The Northwest Forest Plan reduced logging by 75%. The Northwest has the most intact old-growth forests anywhere in the lower 48 states.

Bill Gaines, executive director of Washington Conservation Science Institute, said one threat to the region's forests is wildfires. He says the plan will have to find ways to address this.

"We're going to need to use tools like managed wildfire, prescribed fire, and so the management direction is going to have to allow for those tools to be applied in order to hang on to some old forests into the future. It's a real challenge," he explained.

Brown added the new amendment has potential to help the region.

"It's a really great opportunity that we have here to improve upon what was already pretty good to start with and to address not only the climate crisis but also the biodiversity crisis and to make sure that we include community perspectives and tribal perspectives that really just were not at the table the first time around," she continued.


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