New Mexico State Rep. Angelica Rubio (D-35) will introduce the bill, which is tied to the creation of a New Mexico Office of Outdoor Recreation, a priority economic development initiative that New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham has committed to creating in her first 100 days in office.
The Outdoor Equity Fund seeks a $100,000 state appropriation in addition to committed funding from private donors such as outdoor industry retailers, to provide micro-grants to local governments, Indian communities, and nonprofit organizations to help fund outdoor recreation and education programs that serve at least a 40-percent low-income youth population. Eligible grant recipients, for example, could include a Boys & Girls’ Club outdoor recreation program, a summer hiking program for the City of Española, or an aquatics and fishing program for Santo Domingo Pueblo. The micro-grants could be used for staff time, equipment, transportation, and other operational needs.
“In New Mexico, our culture and traditions are tied to the land and our natural resources, resources that we will be aggressively marketing to visitors and tourists as part of the creation of an Office of Outdoor Recreation,” Rubio said. “The Outdoor Equity Fund helps to level the playing field for our own communities and youth, so that they too, are able to enjoy these same experiences and resources.”
In June 2018, a group of Hispanic state leaders penned an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal, “Hispanics Stand up for the Environment,” asking the state’s incoming leaders to balance the push for increased ecotourism with re-investment in local communities and fair representation of the state’s population within the proposed Office of Outdoor Recreation.
Anyone who has worked on federal lands issues knows one of the political weaknesses of the enviro movement is the lack of visitation to such lands by the Hispanic community. For instance, the governments own studies show the typical Wilderness visitor is an upper-income, white male with an advanced degree. Hispanic and other minorities visitation rates are far below their percentage of the general population. Monuments and Wilderness areas truly are enclaves set aside as playgrounds for higher-income, non-minority types. The effort described above is supported by the enviros as a way to use the government and taxpayer funds to assist in overcoming a political liability.
1 comment:
They are describing socialized recreation.
Since the days of Woodrow Wilson and his successors the socialist influence on our society has mushroomed and this concept that taxpayers pay for some citizens to experience outdoor recreation is just another example. We have developed socialized medicine, socialized insurance, socialized finances, socialized "social" programs, socialized food (agricultural) production, etc. so it is completely logical and predictable that we would have vast government expenditures on socialized recreation so the recreationist don't have to pay their own way so long as the money holds out.
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