7F: Cultivating a Public- Private Partnership

Wednesday, October 2, 2024, 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

Many communities expect their public land agency to be all things to all people and set a variety of goals and expectations ranging from high quality recreation opportunities to increased conservation of resource areas that might even be in competition with one another such as increased access, climate resilience or enhanced resource protection. These goals lead to costly operations and projects to support the community needs and at the same time, many of our agencies are experiencing resource constraints through reduced budgets and the increasing cost of doing business while having to do more with less in managing public lands and recreation opportunities.As operational costs continue to increase along with our visitation and resource management needs, many agencies are having to cut budgets, reduce programs and defer critical infrastructure projects that many times will have an impact on the land or the recreation opportunities. In many cases, our visitors and residents are passionate about the key goals we are trying to solve such as equity in access, climate resilience and responsible recreation and are willing to support in a variety of ways including financially.