Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by
the Honorable Dirk Kempthorne,
Secretary of the Interior
National Parks and Recreation Association Conference
Seattle, Washington
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Before I begin my remarks, I want to thank Fran for her service to our country. She has worked tirelessly on behalf of our national parks, including overseeing 6,000 maintenance and restoration projects. Thank you, Fran, for your years of dedicated service to our parks.
I am pleased that the Senate recently confirmed Mary Bomar to succeed Fran as the Service’s director. Many of you know Mary. She is a career National Park Service employee who will hit the ground running and will do great things for our parks in the coming years. Mary, of course, was born a British subject and became a naturalized American citizen. Ironically, she will take her oath of office at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the very place America declared its independence from Britain. Once again, Britain’s loss is our gain.
Let me begin today with stories about two children – one a boy and one a girl.
The boy grew up in New York, a child of privilege. He was a sickly, asthmatic boy with bad eyesight. There was so little medical knowledge in his era that his parents tried to cure his asthma by having him smoke cigars and drink strong coffee. He was a bright young man, but the chances of a healthy and full life seemed slim.
Then, as a young man, he traveled to North Dakota to live on a ranch. There, for the first time, he saw elk, bison, and deer. He learned to ride a horse, to fish and to hunt, and to take long hikes in the outdoors. His health improved dramatically – and today we have the remarkable story of Teddy Roosevelt.
Later he remarked, "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota."
The girl grew up in Europe. When she was 13, her family went into hiding to escape the Nazis. She was a girl whose perceptions of the world around her belied her age. She wrote them down in a diary – a diary that ended when her family was betrayed and she was taken off to die in a concentration camp.
Anne Frank wrote about the human heart – about fear, hope, and longing. As she gazed upon the world around her, she too discovered what Teddy Roosevelt had found years before.
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy,” she wrote in her diary, “is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.”
These are stories for today. We live in a world of incredible technological advances that could hardly have been imagined a generation ago. The Internet has placed at our fingertips the vast warehouse of human knowledge. We can sit in front of our computers and access the content of libraries and the resources of universities around the world with the click of a mouse. And yet, in the amiddle of all this knowledge, we seem to be losing the knowledge and experience of the natural world.
Many people, especially young people, have become separated from the power of the great outdoors to renew and revive the human spirit. Vast numbers of children spend much of their lives in windowless rooms playing games on line – games in which the hunted are often human.
You and I are in the business of changing this. We are in the business of renewing the connection between people and the outdoors. Of getting people out of cyberspace and into open spaces. Of getting them to put down their Blackberries and go pick blackberries. To lay aside their I-Pods and go see a pod of whales. To stop channel surfing and go wind surfing. To shut off the web casts and cast a line for a trout.
As we work together in the coming years, I hope my experience as a mayor, as a senator, as a governor, and now as Secretary of the Interior will be a benefit to you in opening up the great outdoors to new generations of Americans.
When I was mayor of Boise, I learned first-hand that the federal government can be a vital partner in providing outdoor recreational opportunities. We set out to preserve a scenic area in the foothills outside the city called Hull’s Gulch. The area had great potential for recreation, but much of it was privately owned and at risk of being developed. The federal government proved to be the catalyst that made it possible for us to transform the area into a park for the people of Boise.
With the help of Land and Water Conservation funds, we brought together a partnership of conservation and recreation groups and purchased the lands from willing sellers. As a result, Hull’s Gulch is now a 213-acre reserve with countless biking and hiking trails. If you are a child in Boise, chances are you’ve hiked or ridden your bike in Hull’s Gulch.
This kind of experience as a mayor and a governor has made me a big supporter of programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I know how important it is to providing recreational opportunities for local communities. As a senator, I supported full LWCF funding. In my current position, I am an advocate within the administration for more funding under the program.
As governor, I was a passionate advocate for state parks. During my last session in office, I proposed, and the state legislature appropriated, the largest increase for state parks in the history of Idaho to fund my initiative called “Experience Idaho.” This initiative is a once-in-a-generation investment in repairing, improving and expanding our state park system.
And it is more than simply an investment in our parks. It is an investment in our economy…it is an investment in our children…and it is an investment that will benefit future generations of Idahoans as they go to these natural sanctuaries to reconnect with the land and to reconnect as families.
We need initiatives like “Experience Idaho” across America. The loss of connection between people and the outdoors is contributing to what is fast becoming a national crisis. Our nation is getting sick from lack of fresh air and exercise.
In a reversal of what happened to Teddy Roosevelt, healthy children are becoming unhealthy as they grow older because no one has taken them out to the woods, the rivers and the mountains. No one has taken them to explore our parks or ride our bike trails. No one has planted in their hearts the seed of wonder and awe at the sight of a waterfall or a bald eagle.
The Center for Disease Control recently published some shocking statistics.
From 1991 to 2004, the number of overweight children skyrocketed. Nearly one in five children are overweight.
The situation is worse among adults. Nearly one out of three adults – or 60 million people – are not just overweight but obese.
A health crisis is approaching like a tsunami. We face a possible epidemic of heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and other maladies – all related to inactivity.
We are even seeing cases of Type 2 diabetes – known as adult onset diabetes – in children as young as 7 years old. We face the prospect that life expectancy for the younger generation may actually be lower than it is for the older generation.
As a nation, we must do something about this. We must restore to our youth the love of nature and outdoor recreation.
I imagine each of us in this room has memories from our childhood of times when our parents or other adults took us into the great outdoors – times when they instilled a love for the natural world in our hearts. I imagine that is when many of you found your calling in life – a calling that led you to be at this conference today.
You never know what is going to happen when you take a child out camping, biking, hiking, fishing or hunting. You just know it is going to be good.
My daughter, Heather, is a fine example. My wife, Patricia, and I used to take Heather and our son Jeff camping when they were children. It wasn’t wilderness camping by any stretch. We rented our tents.
When we’d arrive at the campsite, Jeff would be so excited, he’d get into everything and be covered with dirt in a matter of minutes. Heather was another story. She waited in the car until the tent was put up. Only then would she leave – I think we had to put a runner down for her – and march to the tent where she would hold court. She didn’t come out until it was time to leave. She wasn’t exactly a cover girl for Field and Stream.
Somehow, however, Heather came to discover what Teddy Roosevelt and Anne Frank discovered – the inner joy of being ‘quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.” When she went to college, she became a professional white water river guide and slept under the stars night after night – and loved it. You never know what seed might be planted in a child’s heart.
I had the opportunity to see some seeds planted recently. Shortly after I became Secretary last spring, the Fish and Wildlife Service held a National Fishing Day event at a pond on the Mall in Washington. They stocked the pond with bass and bluegill and taught several hundred inner-city children to fish.
What a delight it was to see the smiles on these children’s faces when they reeled in their first fish. Many of these children have difficult lives that give them little reason to smile. What power a simple fishing line and pond have to light up their faces! And quite possibly change a life.
I remember one girl in particular. She was 10 years old. I asked her what she wanted to be in life. She said she wanted to be a children’s doctor.
I asked her where she got that idea. She said she often had to see a children’s doctor. I asked her if she had diabetes. She said “yes.” I asked her if she injected herself every day. She said yes she did.
I don’t know about you, but when I meet a 10-year-old who gets up every morning and gives herself injections, I consider her to be little hero.
If we can lift up this little hero by giving her a chance to breathe fresh air -- if we can build her self-esteem by teaching her to catch a fish -- then we may well someday have a new children’s doctor.
This is our challenge. None of us in this room can meet this challenge alone. In the end, it is a family matter. Parents themselves have to get their children out of the windowless rooms and into God’s cathedral.
What we can do is provide the opportunity. We can provide the parks, the trails, the camping sites, and the nature programs for children. We can work together to conserve and restore our land and make it accessible to inner city children and others who normally wouldn’t venture into the outdoors. We can let people know that there is a magical world right at the doorsteps waiting to be discovered – a world of pine cones and waterfalls, autumn leaves and rainbow trout.
When President Bush nominated me to be Interior Secretary, he made it clear that conserving our national parks while providing outdoor recreational opportunities for the American people was one of his biggest priorities for my department.
We are moving forward to conserve and enhance our national parks in several important ways. In June, we announced new management policies for the park system. I want to thank Ron (Lehman, NRPA Chair) and your association for your strong support of these policies.
The policies recognize the importance of our national parks as places for recreation while ensuring that when there is a conflict between conservation of our resources the use of those resources, conservation will be predominant.
Since then, President Bush has directed me to launch a 10-year effort to ensure our national parks not only endure but flourish in the future. We are calling this the “Centennial Challenge” because 10 years from now is the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the National Park System.
The goal of the Centennial Challenge is not to gear up to begin projects in 10 years, but to start now so that we can celebrate victory 10 years from today. In the near future, we will establish specific performance goals that, when achieved, will make sure our parks continue to be places where children and families can learn about our nation’s great history, enjoy quality time together and have fun outdoors. We will also identify signature projects and programs that reflect and highlight these goals.
We are calling on Americans to join this great effort – through philanthropy, through volunteerism, and through support of cooperative conservation partnerships.
I invite all of you to participate in the challenge. We value your expertise, your experience and your passion for our parks.
May the Centennial Challenge also serve as a call to action in every state, county and city. Working together, this Centennial Challenge can be a seamless catalyst that invigorates our nation’s parks. And by that, I mean our national parks, our state parks, our city parks, and even private ones.
Together, we can reignite America's passion for the outdoors. We can help families and children become healthier and live fuller lives. We can help raise up a new generation of conservationists, dedicated to preserving and celebrating “America the Beautiful.”
The boy at the beginning of my remarks – Teddy Roosevelt – observed that “there can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country.”
I commend you for your professionalism and dedication to this great cause. I look forward to working in partnership with you in the next two years.
Together, we will ensure the American people – and especially our children -- have abundant opportunities to enjoy the beauty of nature and spiritual renewal of our great outdoors.
Thank you.
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U.S. Department of the Interior