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Together, We Move Forward for People and the Outdoors
Trust for Public Land’s president and CEO extends a message of gratitude and a vision for the road ahead.
By Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser
Updated November 20, 2024
As this challenging election season comes to a close, it’s important today to extend a message of gratitude and a vision for the road ahead. Despite a nation divided on so many issues, voters across the country demonstrated a powerful and unified commitment to parks, public lands, and outdoor access for all.
With confirmation overnight of Illinois’ McHenry County conservation measure, we’re thrilled to share that voters approved 100 percent of the 23 ballot measures championed by Trust for Public Land this year.
Together, these initiatives will generate over $16 billion in public funding for parks, open spaces, water and wildlife protection, and climate resilience projects. Measures like California’s climate bond and conservation initiatives in Colorado, Minnesota, Georgia, New Mexico, and Illinois underscore how deeply Americans value natural spaces as places to gather, recharge, and connect.
These wins build on Trust for Public Land’s nearly 50-year history of connecting people to the outdoors and its 28-year legacy of conservation finance expertise, working alongside communities and legislatures to pass ballot initiatives, generating an astounding $110 billion of voter-approved public funding for parks, open spaces, and clean air and water. We’ve achieved this remarkable milestone by passing 681 measures in 567 unique jurisdictions of all political leanings, benefitting nearly all Americans and proving that our work bridges partisan lines. Yet despite this success, parks and green spaces remain deeply underfunded. In fact, state and local spending on roads in a single year exceeds what we’ve achieved in three decades for parks.
In order to realize the full power and potential of conservation to connect everyone to the outdoors—hikers, hunters, bikers, anglers, birders, skiers, rafters, and many more—especially the 100 million people in the U.S. who still lack access to high-quality close-to-home outdoor spaces, we must continue to scale and leverage our momentum.
This shared work is more urgent than ever. Indeed, we need our momentum to carry us further, faster.
An immediate step toward expanding this access will be passing the federal Outdoors for All Act, which will prioritize parks and open spaces for even more communities by codifying the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) grant program. With legislators heading back to Congress to finish out the year, now is the time to urge your senators to support this critical legislation.
A vote for conservation and the great outdoors helps ensure that all communities—rural, urban, and everywhere in between—benefit from safe, welcoming outdoor spaces that strengthen neighborhoods and foster connections.
Thank you for being part of this vital movement to create places for people to connect, play, and find joy.
One-third of Americans, including 28 million children, lack safe, easy access to a park within a 10-minute walk of home. Urge your senators to pass the Outdoors for All Act to create parks and enhance outdoor recreational opportunities before the congressional session ends!
Every year, with the help of advocates like you, we pass major policies and ballot measures and raise funds that create and protect safe and equitable green spaces.
In 2023 alone, our advocates sent more than 248,000 petitions urging officials to protect public lands where they are needed most. And we generated more than $1.4 billion in funding for parks, land conservation, and climate resilience in cities.
