It’s about the economy

Last week, I was more than 2,500 miles from home speaking to decision makers about a valuable business asset that I’d like to secure. It’s not part of a stock portfolio or factored into my company overhead. It happens to be an amazing landscape that I’m passionate about as an Oregonian and a whitewater boater. With a group of other outdoor industry professionals, I traveled to our nation’s capital to advocate for one of Oregon’s and the nation’s most amazing public lands treasures: the Owyhee Canyonlands.  

As a guide who has taken clients to some of the world’s most remote and beautiful whitewater rivers, I feel deeply fortunate to have one of the best in my own backyard. Boaters make the pilgrimage from all over the nation to the Owyhee River for unmatched solitude and startling beauty. The canyon walls along the Owyhee are so immense that The New York Times proclaimed it “Oregon’s Grand Canyon.” The area offers a unique backcountry experience for whitewater enthusiasts and is one of America’s great river adventures. It is also a world-renowned resource for hunters and anglers, hikers, stargazers, and myriad other groups who love the great outdoors. 

{mosads}The Owyhee offers a unique whitewater experience that is becoming increasingly rare. It provides a multi-day float trip popular with wide array of river runners during spring runoff, and its tributaries provide even more opportunities for land and water-based adventure.  

Stated simply, protecting the Owyhee Canyonlands is good for business. A protective designation that would provide a ‘star on the map’ for the Owyhees would almost certainly boost the local economy as well as the whitewater industry across the state and region.  

Recent research by Headwaters Economics shows communities near protected public land experience an economic lift from visitation, increased livability, and service sector jobs. Currently, 16 percent of total private jobs in Malheur County – home to the Oregon side of the Owyhees – are in travel and tourism related sectors. This provides a great opportunity for growth. In an agricultural area stricken with four years of drought, options for diversifying the economy are more vital than ever. Research also shows that agricultural sectors do better in communities that are near protected public lands.  This is of critical importance given the important role ranching will continue to play in protecting wide open spaces that visitors value.
An area larger than Yellowstone National Park with just three paved roads crossing it, Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands is the largest undeveloped, unprotected expanse in the lower 48 states. Its red-rock canyons, pristine rivers and intact sagebrush uplands are home to a rich array of wildlife, including native redband trout, pronghorn, chukar and one of the largest herds of California bighorn sheep in the nation. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has identified the southern portion of the Owyhee as one of the six most important areas in the nation to the survival of the imperiled Greater sage-grouse. 

Oregon’s Owyhee also features plants found nowhere else on Earth, more than 500 known archeological sites and otherworldly geological grandeur straight out of the Southwest.

Oregon’s Owyhee remains unprotected – some 2.5 million acres of wilderness-quality public land in total. The Owyhee Canyonlands area represents the largest conservation opportunity in the coterminous United States. 

But despite all this, what fuels me is the opportunity to keep the river and the entire watershed just like it is. I want future generations to experience the peace and solitude of a cold and still May morning, dipping oars into the Owyhee River. I want them to see waterfowl cruise by silently overhead and redband trout glide effortlessly in pools beneath the stern of a raft. These are values worth fighting for. 

We are lucky here in Oregon to have congressional representatives who understand the benefit protected public lands have—not just for our quality of life—but also for the economic well-being of our state as a whole. I was in DC to urge our elected officials to take bold action to permanently protect the Owyhee Canyonlands.

Collier is the owner of Northwest Rafting Company and has led groups throughout the U.S. as well as Siberia, Bhutan, Nepal, Honduras, and Chile.