I want to thank the American Recreation Coalition and the entire recreation community for the honor I am receiving tonight.

It is a delight to be here with so many of you that I have come to know and respect during my service at the Department of the Interior.

And while I do subscribe to the core message of the award-that individuals can make a real difference to recreation opportunities-I want to tell you that this award is certainly something I regard as the fruit of hard work and great and creative thinking by those I so enjoy working with at Interior.

I know that much of that team is here tonight - Deputy Secretary Griles and Chief of Staff Brian Waidmann; Assistant Secretaries Lynn Scarlett and Craig Manson; National Park Service Director Fran Mainella and BLM Director Kathleen Clark; Take Pride in America Director Marti Albright and my Director of Intergovernmental and External Affairs office, Kit Kimball, and many more.

I ask my colleagues at Interior to raise their hands so that we can express our thanks to you.

Tonight is not the time for a lengthy address, despite the fact that the importance of recreation on our public lands is high. But that does not mean that we can overlook new challenges. Our mission, as managers of public lands, is more complex today than ever before. Doing so is possible when we work together; when people love lands for the long term.

We are seeing growing healthcare concerns linked to lowered physical activity all across the nation - concerns that reflect billions of dollars in new costs. For that reason, the Healthier U.S. Initiative benefits both ourselves and future generations.

Our public lands are a logical and important tool to address this challenge. And we can do just that with existing partners, such as the recreation industry and new partners in the health community.

We also need to face the leisure choice challenges of younger Americans, some of whom have become couch potatoes.

Participation and frequency of participation in outdoor recreation for our youth and younger Americans is down, resulting largely from other exciting uses of leisure hours such as computer games, the Internet and the diversity of offerings available on your TV screen.

With those challenges in mind, I have a request for you. Help me and my colleagues address these challenges through partnerships, in creative new ways.

A few principles will continue to guide my actions to continue and enhance recreation opportunities across this great nation of ours.

The first is that time outdoors yields important benefits to individuals, to families, to communities, to the nation. Recreation contributes to our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Recreation provides strong bonds between friends and among family members. Time in the outdoors is the glue that keeps us one nation - the love of our parks and forests, refuges and other special places.

Personal examples

The second principle is that Americans have the right to use and enjoy our public lands.

My life, and the lives of all public land managers might be simpler if fewer people exercised this right to hike, fish, camp, ski, snowmobile, climb, paddle and more on public lands and water - but the nation's laws don't direct us to seek to simplify the lives of public land managers. Rather, they direct us to provide opportunities for recreation. Whether or not snowmobiles should be allowed on public lands is, at its core, a philosophical issue.

A third principle is that federal agencies and employees can't manage our lands and waters and provide great recreation experiences alone.

The Take Pride in America program has been especially rewarding in this regard, and I want to thank Derek Crandall for his partnership with us.

The successes of the last year are significant, and are due to the great power of partnerships. The partners of Take Pride include Disney and the National Park Service; Clint Eastwood and the Good Sam Club; the American Recreation Coalition and the state park directors; governors and Girl Scouts and so many more.

I had the unique experience of riding in the Tournament of Roses parade this year, along the old Route 66, with 400,000 hours of volunteer time pledged from Southern Californians to restore burned public lands.

As land managers, we recognize our responsibilities, and we will fulfill them. Funding for national parks has never been higher. We are now spending more money per park, per visitor, and per employee than ever before.

And we will see another big boost when Congress enacts the next surface transportation measure, which will almost double funding for park roads as well as increase funding for other roads, sewer systems, and trails on public lands.

The public tells us that they are enjoying their visits to public lands immensely, and find them in good shape. We are partners in this task, partners with volunteers and state and local agencies, partners with business that operate on public lands as outfitters and guides, as campground managers and concessioners.

This partnership is not sought because of tight budgets, but by choice; because that is the way the job will be done best.

These principles are reflected in the actions I have taken as Secretary of the Interior.

I have made clear that we will not bemoan the challenge of too many people who seek to enjoy their outdoor legacy - you have not heard me complaining that Americans are loving their parks to death.

Instead, we have put in place better capacity to lessen the public's impacts on our natural and cultural resources through investments in infrastructure, ranging from roads to water treatment facilities, eliminating billions in backlogged repairs.

We are helping Americans find the experiences they are seeing through our e-gov initiatives, including www.recreation.gov and the unification of reservations through the National Recreation Reservation System.

We are boosting dollars to the through local retention of fee demo receipts - nearly $200 million in new dollars for four federal agencies. And we are undertaking an ambitious effort to help Americans understand appropriate ways to enjoy the time on public lands and waters through Take Pride in America.

Having said all that, I am honored to accept the Sheldon Coleman Great Outdoors Award and am grateful to all of you for your advice, encouragement and support over the years.

Thanks also to the American Recreation Coalition for its nomination; the distinguished panel of recreation and conservation community leaders for their selection; and especially to all of you who work with us at Interior to improve and expand recreational opportunities for Americans on public and private lands and waters.