Media Coverage

…Protected public lands are a competitive economic advantage in southern New Mexico and Doña Ana County. These lands safeguard important natural assets and cultural landmarks, stimulate tourism and recreation jobs, and attract new people and businesses…

A large and growing body of literature demonstrates that protected public lands assist western communities working to promote a more robust economic future.

• Outdoor recreation is important to western economies. In New Mexico, for example, the Outdoor Industry Foundation reports that active outdoor recreation contributes $3.8 billion annually to the state’s economy, supporting 43,000 jobs.
• Services jobs such as engineers and architects are increasingly mobile, and many entrepreneurs locate their businesses in areas with a high quality of life. Conserving lands, while also creating a new visibility for them through protective designations, helps safeguard and highlight the amenities that attract people and businesses.
• For many seniors and soon-to-be retirees, protected public lands and recreation provide important aspects of a high quality of life. Non-labor sources of income already represent more than a third of all personal income in the West–and will grow as the Baby Boomer generation retires.⁴
• The counties in the West with protected public lands, like national monuments, have been more successful at attracting fast-growing economic sectors and as a result grow more quickly, on average, than counties without protected public lands.
• Protected natural amenities–such as pristine scenery and wildlife–help sustain property values and attract new investment.…

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…In 2012, Headwaters Economics released a report analyzing the major economic role that public lands near Grand County, Utah. The study (scroll down for a full-length PDF download) examined a wide range of public lands uses, including mining and agriculture, but focused on recreation because this type of use represents the largest, most complex, and least well understood activity on public lands in the county.

The study found that that tourism and recreation businesses account for 44 percent of private employment in the county; and that more than one-third of local families have a member that works in a tourism and recreation business related to public lands.… (more…)

…Challenging the notion that protecting public land locks it up, more than 100 economists, including three Nobel laureates, are calling on the president and Congress to create more parks and other protected preserves in the West as a way to bolster state economies.

The economists also urge the creation of something similar to the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, which built trails and maintained infrastructure in national parks.

“We urge you to create jobs and support business by investing in our public lands infrastructure and establishing new protected areas such as parks, wilderness and monuments,” they wrote in a letter. Such areas “attract innovative companies and workers, and are an essential component of the region’s competitive advantage,” they added.

The drafting of the letter was organized by Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit organization that studies the economics of natural resources, with a tilt toward preservation. Ray Rasker, an economist with Headwaters, cited a study by his organization that found that Grand County, Utah, home to the tourist mecca of Moab, has been doing quite well: jobs there grew at a 7 percent annual rate in the 1990s and have been growing 2 percent annually during the current recession.

“In the last 40 years, the fastest growth in the West has been in communities adjacent to protected public lands,” Dr. Rasker said. “This is what’s creating jobs currently at a time of high unemployment — we need policy that creates jobs.”… (more…)

…Salmon, McCall, Stanley and Riggins have benefited from the tens of thousands of whitewater rafters, hikers, hunters, anglers and horse packers attracted to the Frank. But without commercial air service, broadband Internet connections and other convenient links to the outside world, higher-income development hasn’t followed.

“It’s not a case of ‘protect natural areas and the income will come,'” said Ray Rasker of Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Mont., who signed the letter. “It’s more nuanced.”

The places that have benefited more are Boise, Ketchum-Sun Valley and Idaho Falls, Rasker said. These are the places with the airports, education systems and other amenities that allow footloose, high-income workers — engineers and architects — to do business while having access to Idaho’s wild places.… (more…)

Public lands such as wilderness and national parks fuel the economy and are a job creator in the West, luring the best companies and most talented employees to enjoy the country’s playgrounds.

That assertion is the impetus behind a letter sent Wednesday to President Barack Obama and signed by more than 100 economists and academics in related fields, asking him to protect existing public lands.

The letter also urges him to create new protected areas, although in a subsequent teleconference hosted by some of the signatories they said that option would be more viable down the road…

Of more critical concern is the declining health of existing national parks and monuments that are suffering from neglected infrastructure that threatens the visitor experience, said Ray Rasker, the letter’s organizer and executive director of Headwaters Economics.

“Much of the infrastructure is crumbling,” Rasker said. “It really requires an investment and is something we need to protect.”… (more…)

…An analysis of the potential impacts, on the southern New Mexican economy, of naming Otero Mesa National Monument was done recently by Headwaters Economics, an independent, non-profit research group.

“The short answer is that repeated academic studies have shown that investments in public lands conservation and restoration provide an immediate return through new employment and revenue,” says author Ben Alexander. The study cites the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which recently found that “recreation and tourism development contributes to rural well-being, increasing local employment, wage levels, and income, reducing poverty, and improving education and health.”

Unlike the small-scale, short-term benefits of resource extraction that would be expected for Otero Mesa residents, protected public lands also help to promote long-term economic growth, says the Headwaters study, “because of their ability to attract and retain people, entrepreneurs, and the growing number of retirees who locate for quality of life reasons.” Published research also shows that natural amenities help sustain property values and attract new investment.

While a national monument designation “would not harm agricultural uses or military employment” in the area, says the study, passing up an opportunity to diversify the economy of southern New Mexico and to boost its long-term resiliency by protecting its unique desert grasslands could be a bad move. “Looking at mineral wealth, the [BLM’s] analysis showed little reason to believe that the local economy would benefit from projected fossil fuel extraction on Otero Mesa–and that the limited revenue from mineral extraction might not even cover the share of infrastructure and service costs,” says Alexander.… (more…)

…Of five Rocky Mountain energy-producing states, Wyoming sees the highest percentage of monetary benefit because of the level of production and state severance taxes. Report author Julia Haggerty with Headwaters Economics says she also discovered that jobs are more closely connected to market prices, than state policies such as severance taxes.

“It’s price, not so much policy decisions, that determine the number of people that are employed and the size of the paychecks that they bring home.”

Haggerty shares another insight to demonstrate how important it is for the state to diversify its economy. Wyoming saw the largest percentage decline in personal income during the recession among the five states studied.

“The more dependent you are on industries that track so closely with volatile commodities like oil and gas, the more you will be exposed to trends in those industries.”

The “cost” to the environment and quality of life are additional economic factors that Haggerty says need more consideration…

“The cumulative impacts that are surfacing in these areas with regards to air quality, for example, as well as long-term impacts to residents who are dealing with the daily industrialization of their landscape.”… (more…)

…Headwaters Economics: Economic Impact of National Parks is an interactive page that shows how protected public lands, such as national parks, can play an important economic role for local communities.  The web-based tool lists visits, non-local spending and the number of jobs created in gateway communities for each National Park Service unit.  Visitation, tourism and jobs related to nearby public lands annually contribute billions of dollars to regional economies while creating hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs… (more…)

…Got a nice compliment from Headwaters Economics about last week’s posting that profiled wilderness areas that Republican lawmakers have proposed for permanent protection.

Headwaters sent me a link to a research brief from Utah State University professors arguing that wilderness designations are a net economic loser for nearby counties, resulting in reduced per capita income, payrolls, and tax receipts. Headwaters came right back at ’em with a critique of the brief, pointing out analytical flaws and the countervailing, peer-reviewed evidence documenting the economic benefits of wilderness for nearby communities.… (more…)

…Headwaters Economics in Montana has analyzed a House Resources Committee proposal to increase logging on national forests by easing environmental protections. It concluded that at current log prices, historically low because of the housing crash, the U.S. Forest Service would have to increase timber production more than 200 percent above the average for the past 30 years.

At current administrative costs, the Forest Service would have to spend $2.2 billion a year planning timber sales to generate the $378 million per year that has been going to counties.

"It’s hard to imagine even under the most favorable market conditions, let alone the current market conditions," said Headwaters economist Chris Mehl.…

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Are Wyoming’s industry and political leaders talking about the facts when they say that Obama and Washington bureaucrats are hurting domestic energy development? You have to wonder after today’s release of Headwaters Economics’ statistical analysis, “Drilling Rig Activity Nears All-Time High”

The refrain is repeatedly made from the oil and gas and coal industries, as well as national and Wyoming politicians (mostly Republicans, to be sure), that onerous regulations are blocking us from achieving greater energy independence. But what emerges from the new analysis tells a different and evolving story.

In fact, oil and natural gas drilling in the United States has returned to pre-recession levels.… (more…)

A new study by Headwaters Economics compares how Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming–five states with vast traditional and clean energy resources–are taking advantage of clean energy opportunities to create green jobs.  The report concludes with five keys to success for the states to further benefit from the emerging green economy while measuring the likelihood that each state’s policies will promote future growth and investment.

“The green economy already contributes positively to the region, and it has been growing rapidly in terms of job creation, investment, and production,” said Julia Haggerty Ph.D., the report’s author. “But the opportunities are going to the states that show the most leadership.”…

“All of the states have opportunities to benefit from the green economy, but it does not happen by accident,” said Haggerty. “States performing the best–such as Colorado and New Mexico–have made a strong, deliberate, and lasting commitment to growing their green economy.”… (more…)

An extensive report by Headwaters Economics, an independent regional research organization, recommends that Wyoming follow Alaska’s example to revamp its severance tax formula and direct additional tax revenue to the counties and communities where most mineral extraction takes place…

In the 62-page report, Impacts of Energy Development in Wyoming, with a Case Study of Sweetwater County, authors Julia Haggerty and Mark Haggerty argue Wyoming’s current formula distributes only a small percentage of the severance tax it receives to the local governments where the energy impact is greatest.

“Wyoming has the least favorable tax structure on oil and natural gas of anyone in the inter-mountain west,” Mark Haggerty said in an interview with WyoFile, “and yet, it’s the center of drilling activity.”

The report disputes the widespread notion that Wyoming’s counties and municipalities receive big bucks from energy development in their backyards.

“Despite the high production value of extraction in Sweetwater County,” the authors conclude, “return to the county through state severance taxes is a small part of total county revenue.” Following Sublette and Campbell County, Sweetwater is Wyoming’s third-highest producer of mineral revenue.

Yet, according to the report, Sweetwater isn’t getting much back:

“In 2007, state severance tax distributions (to Sweetwater County) of $444,866 made up seven percent of intergovernmental revenue, or ten percent of total revenue. Across Wyoming, the state returns only a small portion of total revenue to local governments (seven percent to counties and one percent to cities and towns in 2008 or $196 million and $25 million respectively).”… (more…)