Remarks Prepared For Delivery By
The Honorable Gale Norton
Secretary of the Interior
Public Lands Day
September 28, 2002
Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here on this historic occasion.
At the beginning I said that I was envious of those who would be embarking on this journey. After following some of their journal entries-- that envy has been reinforced. Let me share just a few stories.
The Southern trekkers were on their way through House Rock Valley in northern Arizona. They came up slowly over a ridge when they saw a herd of bison.
In unmoving silence, the trekkers watched the herd advance and then turn and retreat single file framed by the Grand Canyon on the south, the Marble Canyon of the Colorado River on the east, the Vermillion Cliffs on the north and the Kaibab Plateau on the west. The group was awed by the spectacle. It was a sight only a small percentage of Americans will ever see outside of a movie theater.
Yet the opportunity is open to all Americans.
The Northern team was visiting the Spotted Bear Ranger District near Kalispell, Montana. As part of an evening program, two people were dressed in period costumes and acting out an early journey West and questioning whether they might run into a bear. As if on cue, a mother bear and her two cubs sauntered into camp, looked around and slowly went on their way. Meanwhile the audience gasped and experienced escape reflexes, but prudently stayed seated.
The forest ranger said he had never seen a bear in that area before. Seeing a bear in the wild is a sight only a small percentage of Americans will ever see outside of a television commercial.
Yet the opportunity is open to all Americans.
We have watched these teams be reunited after a spectacular journey of almost 1,600 miles for each--- in which they never set foot outside of public lands. These lands were national parks and forests, wildlife refuges and Bureau of Land Management lands. Lands that if put together would cover the 25 smallest states plus Texas. Lands that belong to all Americans.
Many are here in the West, but there are public lands within 100 miles of every major metropolitan area.
Here is what trekker Cathy Kiffe experienced at the Grand Canyon:
"Words are too tiny and pictures too small to give a description of the grandeur of the Canyon-the fascinating color changes as the sun rises; the impossible understanding of elevation and space. It is a tapestry we longed to reach out and touch that took millions of years to create and is unfathomable in its spectrum of colors, shapes and sizes.
"No electricity, no city lights, nothing but nature all around.... and, as I lay on the ground looking up, I felt an incredible sense of peace come over me. Seeing the stars, hearing the crickets, knowing all is well in this moment in time. This is the kind of healing moment I know that this type of experience on Public Lands can offer anyone coming to visit..."
These were the rewards our trekkers received. No one offered them a million dollars, instead they saw a million vistas.
The long journey, the countless new experiences and the ceremony today all are designed to draw attention to what America offers in its public lands and to encourage their use.
To that end, today I am announcing the relaunch of our Recreation.gov website. This award winning site can tell you about recreation possibilities at some 2,000 sites managed by ten agencies from five different cabinet departments.
In the past, if you wanted to go canoeing, you first had to surf through several different web sites depending on what agency or department controlled what forest or park. We thought that was a waste of time. It had more to do with government agency turf than with information needed by the public.
So we created a one-stop center for all public land activities for the federal government in 1998.
The expanded and improveed site we unveil today includes maps, museums, including the Smithsonian, and state and county parks, lakes and other recreation sites. We are becoming partners with state tourism agencies to share data and provide even better service to citizens.
Our ceremony today is held at a State Park. You can find information about Utah's parks at Recreation.gov. We list more than 150 sites in the State and link to the Utah State pages.
The site also has a link to the President's Healthier US program. That program is the result of the overwhelming statistics that show 61 percent of the adult population is overweight or obese. Even more shocking, almost 15 percent of all children are overweight. The President is challenging the nation to exercise and reduce the risk of poor health.
I can think of no better prescription than to exercise together in activities on public lands.
It is interesting that a high technology website may be instrumental in bringing people back to the outdoors, back to the natural world, back to the public lands.
As we celebrate National Public Lands Day, there are volunteers and government workers and concerned citizens all over the nation working to clean trails, install signs, weed and plant at more than 400 locations.
We invite prospective volunteers to visit our volunteer.gov website and search easily through hundreds of outdoor volunteer opportunities.
But recreation and volunteerism are only part of the story of our public lands. Our trekkers saw bison grazing, but they also saw sheep and cattle owned by those who use public rangelands to help keep our nation fed.
In Wyoming the Northern trekkers spent time in a trona mine. Trona is used in soaps, detergents and baking soda as well as a catalyst for making glass. This mine, on public lands, produces 90 percent of the world's supply of trona.
The Northern trekkers also saw the largest Bureau of Land Management natural gas fields in Wyoming.
Our public lands have multiple uses and provide many resources for the nation from mining to oil and gas production to grazing and forestry. The Bureau of Reclamation is responsible for water for more than 31 million people in the West and provides water-based recreation activities for more than 90 million visitors a year. Without the Bureau's resources, the record droughts we are experiencing would have been even more devastating.
Our challenge as a nation is to wisely manage and conserve the one out of every four acres of land in this country for which the federal land agencies are responsible. We are guided by communicating, cooperating and consulting with the public. Efforts like this one to inform people about our public lands, are extremely helpful.
Thank you.