Topic: Environmental Policy
Preserving the spirit of the West, in the face of rapid and continuing population growth, requires the building of the deep connections between the people and the land that they inhabit. Rather than lamenting, we should celebrate increasing human visits to natural areas because of the role that such visits play in maintaining the West's unique quality of life and the environmental protection constituency. The challenge is to develop and implement environmentally sound strategies for meeting the need for quality visitor experiences.
The focus of efforts to meet this challenge is, of necessity, the boundary which divides the West's natural areas from its rapidly growing urban population. It is here where most of the pressure for human visitation occurs and where the greatest opportunities exist for building or breaking human/environmental connections. In Colorado, these pressures are felt most acutely along the major intermountain highways and in the foothills to the west of metropolitan Denver and other "Front Range" cities. It is for places like this (as well as the West's great national parks and wilderness areas) that the Connection Ecology project has been working to develop planning tools for better balancing human and environmental interests.
