Outdoor Recreation: A Lucrative Ecosystem Service

How much is a fishing trip, whale watch, or snorkel or dive trip worth to you? If you're an average American, apparently it's worth a lot. America's passion for wildlife and the outdoors continues to be a major engine of the nation's economy, according to preliminary survey data released in June by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2006, more than 87 million Americans, or 38% of the United States' population age 16 and older hunted, fished or observed wildlife. They spent $120 billion that year pursuing those activities; an amount roughly equal to Americans' total spending at all spectator sports, casinos, motion pictures, golf courses and country clubs, amusement parks and arcades combined.

Preliminary data from the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation shows the importance of wildlife-related recreation to the American people. Of all Americans age 16 or older,

• 30 million or 13% fished and spent $41 billion on their activities;
• 12.5 million or 5% hunted and spent $23 billion; and
• 71 million or 31% observed wildlife and spent $45 billion.

This survey shows in real economic and participatory terms the impact that wildlife and healthy ecosystems have on the nation's economy. This expenditure of $120 billion highlights the benefits of these activities on national and state economies, said Survey economist Jerry Leonard. It is roughly equivalent to one out of every one hundred dollars of goods and services produced in our economy. And much of this activity occurs in places which rely significantly on wildlife-related recreation expenditures for their economic well being.

But simply talking about dollars and cents doesn't fully capture the importance and value of wildlife, does it? Nature is far more than merely the backdrop of human enterprise, drama, and recreation. Thoreau and Muir in different ways emphasized hands-on interactions with wilderness. In doing so, they introduced the radical notions that wild nature is in many respects superior to civilization and its products, and that harmonious, non-exploitative encounters with it are of transformative value. We are part of nature, not masters of it (contrary to what our quail bagging, salmon killing Vice President Cheney might hold true.)

From my vantage point as an ocean conservationist, the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report only emphasizes what Rachel Carson powerfully conveyed in The Sea Around Us. She understood the creativity and majesty of the ocean's power, and awakens us to the life-sustaining qualities of the sea and our relationship with water. In accepting the 1952 National Book Foundation Award for Nonfiction, Carson herself admitted, If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

If only an economic valuation could quantify poetry.