Held virtually, the Outdoor Economics Fall Forum was a chance for New Mexico leaders to discuss the importance of outdoor recreation and planning infrastructure to support it.
State Outdoor Recreation Division Director Axie Navas says the conference is designed to spur action in local communities.
“Our goal in a nutshell is to bring outdoor rec jobs to New Mexico, get more kids outside, create more sustainable access to these remarkable places and advance key conservation priorities, so these spaces remain accessible to future generations,” Navas said.
A large part of the conference focused on how municipalities can begin to build their own outdoor economic plans. Ashley Korenblat, the director of Public Land Solutions, says the investment attracts not only visitors but also companies.
“Starting with having a solid plan that's broadly supported in your community is always going to be the first place. If you have those ducks in a row, all these other funding opportunities are going to be more accessible.” Korenblat said. “The return on investment on these dollars compared to traditional economic development, like using money to relocate a company or stimulus or giving tax breaks or whatever, can cost more in the long run than these investments that help both attract businesses and provide amenities to local. So it's all changing but in a great direction.”
One need only look to the city of Farmington, New Mexico, as an example of one local government prioritizing outdoor recreation. Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett says his city wants to capitalize on natural assets to spur growth.
“Economic development is a really hard nut to crack. And you need to have funding behind your efforts to get it done…The discussions, community wide, were how are we going to fund these changes that we all want to make?” Duckett said. “And we were very fortunate at the time to be one of the lowest tax municipalities in the state, and believe we had opportunity there to work with the community and show that we could perform if we had a tax increase. And I know that's not a very popular thing, especially in a conservative community like ours, but the buy in was huge. And individuals recognized that the time to diversify was now.”
After passing a quarter percent tax increase, Farmington formed the Community Transformation and Economic Development Fund. City projects have included land purchases to aid in the creation of a river trail that connects the north and south areas of the town as well as the addition of other trails. Duckett also emphasized the importance of working with different partners, especially in municipalities surrounded by government-owned land.
“You have to really work to develop those partnerships,” Duckett said. “And through those partnerships with San Juan County and the BLM, we were able to put together about $700,000 that the county offered through an RTP grant to the BLM to build additional trails, to facilitate better signage, to, you know, bring people in and putting them into staging areas and start creating the infrastructure…you want to tout yourself as an outdoor recreation hub, but you need to make sure that you're living up to that standard when people show up.”
Duckett says a large incentive for investment is the increased interest visitors and businesses have toward his community.
“You're also trying to attract new people, new businesses, which will grow new jobs, new opportunities and improve the health of the community…those new jobs and those new people add to that tax base. And that tax base in many rural communities all across the United States, that tax base is shrinking,” Duckett said. “I think you just have to look at it from that component. We've got to say, ‘I want people here. What do we need to do to get them here?’”
And getting more people to the state could help boost the economy. New Mexico’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reports outdoor recreation directly supports 33,500 jobs and $1.2 billion in annual income.
