Fight for the Connecticut landscape
Our communities are wonderful places to live and work because of our long-standing public and private investment in protecting what is most significant about Connecticut's landscape and rural character.
Locally grown food, outstanding recreational opportunities, clean drinking water, stunning views, forests, and a range of local businesses and livelihoods are among the important public benefits that open space protection helps to sustain.
Our ability to continue protecting these important values, an integral part of our outdoor economy, is now at risk and requires public and legislative attention.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a bargain investment, in that it does not receive a penny from our personal income taxes.
Instead, financing comes from a fraction of the revenues derived from oil and gas leases in federal waters.
LWCF supports preservation of open space, enhances access to public lands, and creates recreational opportunities through programs like the Forest Legacy Program and the Highlands Conservation Act.
Over the past 46 years, LWCF has provided our state with approximately $48 million for federal conservation projects and $68 million in additional funding for important land protection efforts -- jewels such as Weir Farm National Historic Site, Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, the Great Mountain Forest, and many other state and local parks which we all enjoy.
These places are important to our economy because they draw tourist dollars from out of state residents.
The Outdoor Industry Association reports that each year, 309,000 sportspeople and 1.2 million wildlife watchers combine to spend $873 million on wildlife-associated recreation in Connecticut!
Though LWCF is authorized to receive up to $900 million a year from energy royalties intended to offset the impacts of offshore drilling, Congressional appropriators have consistently withheld most of that funding, shortchanging the program by some $17 billion in total.
In fact, in the new federal budget that was recently enacted, Connecticut's Forest Legacy and Highlands Conservation Act projects went unfunded because of this practice -- despite a backlog of worthy and vital opportunities.
Congress is about to start making decisions on the next federal budget that begins on October 1, 2011.
Congressman Chris Murphy, co-chair of the bipartisan House Land Conservation Caucus, recently led a letter signed by 150 members of congress, including 15 Republicans and most of the Connecticut delegation, in support of the LWCF.
We commend Congressman Murphy and our other representatives and senators in the U.S. Congress for their vision and vigilance in fighting to defend and restore the LWCF, and encourage them to keep up the fight for Connecticut's landscape during the difficult budget negotiations ahead.
Investing these funds as they were intended -- for recreation, wildlife habitat, forests, and open space protection -- makes sense for our state and our local economy, and will pay dividends in the future to the people of Connecticut.
Tim Abbott is president of the Connecticut Land Conservation Council and Amy Blaymore Paterson is the executive director. The council is an umbrella organization working on behalf of the state's land conservation community. See http://www.ctconservation.org/.
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