March 23, 2023 Outdoor Advocacy Nonprofit: 2022 Was Awesome

From unprecedented climate legislation to national monument protection, find out how last year just went from win to win for the US-based nonprofit Outdoor Alliance.

Helping pass historic climate funding legislation and securing a new National Monument in Colorado are among the key conservation successes achieved in 2022 by Outdoor Alliance, a non-profit working on behalf of the human-powered outdoor recreation community to protect public lands and waters. Outdoor Alliance highlighted its achievements over the past year in its 2022 annual report, released this past week.

During 2022, Outdoor Alliance held 224 meetings with lawmakers, generated more than 40,000 letters supporting conservation issues through its action alerts, and released 100 data sets providing statistics to support conservation-related work. Those ongoing efforts helped lead to the following wins:

• 278,804 acres protected through the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument
• 225,504 acres protected through a 20-year mineral withdrawal in the Boundary Waters
• $4 billion to address water conservation efforts in the Colorado River Basin
• $2.6 billion to restore and protect coastal communities and wildlife habitat
• $2 billion supporting wildfire resilience efforts on National Forests
• $1.5 billion supporting urban green space initiatives through the Urban and Community Forestry program
• $20 million for deferred maintenance projects on National Parks
• $500 million for staffing at the National Park Service
• $700 million for USFS wildfire USFS Forest Legacy Program

Building upon momentum

These allocations in funding for specific conservation initiatives stem from components in the country’s largest ever climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. That legislation, passed in August 2022, allocates $369 billion in funding to address the climate crisis.

In 2022, Outdoor Alliance also was involved in efforts to conserve land and waterways near Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, and it worked alongside local partners to finalize a forest plan for Montana’s 3.2 million-acre Custer Gallatin National Forest that preserves and enhances recreation opportunities along with increased land protection.

“The outdoor recreation community continues to be an incredibly important voice in moving conservation legislation and funding forward, and we’re grateful for their help in the successes we saw this past year,” said Adam Cramer, CEO of Outdoor Alliance.

“It’s a long-term effort to get things like this across the finish line, and public support matters greatly. We look forward to growing that momentum as we continue our efforts this year and beyond.”

Lead Photo: Holly Mandarich, Arizona (where Outdoor Alliance is working on greater Grand Canyon protections)