Show a little love for our Left Hand Valley public lands

Growing up, I remember a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" playing regularly on the radio. The last lines of the chorus have always stuck with me:

Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone / They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.

Truly, I didn't know what I had growing up in Colorado until I took a short excursion to live in another state. I traded the Rocky Mountains for a brief stint in central Texas, and it didn't take me long to see that I had dramatically undervalued all the Centennial State has to offer.

I like to think of myself as a glass-half-full kind of person, or at least I strive to be. I believe there are beautiful corners of every state if you know where to look. And looking with my rose-colored glasses, I found this to be true of Texas as well as the many other cities and states I have visited over the years. But what I also found is that some states have more to offer in terms of the things that I find sustaining - namely public lands and undeveloped spaces.

In Colorado, over 24 million acres of the state are federally designated public lands set aside for a variety of uses including outdoor recreation. We have four national parks, eight national monuments, two national grasslands, 11 national forests, 42 state parks, and 44 federally protected wilderness areas. In 2019, according to the Outdoor Industry Association, the outdoor recreation economy in Colorado generated $2 billion in state and local tax revenue and provided 149,000 jobs.

In the Left Hand Valley, I find myself incredibly fortunate with access to public lands, open space, and outstanding trail systems that I routinely enjoy on foot or by bike. Within minutes from my house, I can be on a beautifully maintained trail system that connects me to Longmont, Niwot, and Boulder with marked intersections, designated pedestrian crossings, underpasses, and a multitude of trailheads.

My neighborhood has three green spaces complete with two children's playgrounds, a volleyball court, picnic tables, and paved paths that meander under towering cottonwoods. I have access to open space right out my front door.

If I feel inclined to a change of scenery, I can drive between five and 20 minutes for a trip to Boulder Reservoir, Lagerman Reservoir, Hall Ranch, Heil Valley Ranch, Rabbit Mountain, or Teller Farm, just to name a few options. Less than a two-hour drive away are all the trails of Eldorado Canyon State Park, Indian Peaks Wilderness, and Rocky Mountain National Park, again, just a few of the many choices. In our little corner of paradise, outdoor recreation is about as varied as you can get - with hiking, running, camping, climbing, biking, paddling, paragliding, skiing, snowboarding, off-roading, and so much more to choose from.

I know now not to take for granted what I enjoy here in my home state and in my backyard, a lesson I learned both from my time away in college and in my work since graduating. I spent a little over four years working for REI as a trail content manager - a type of digital cartographer helping people map trails all over the United States and the world. In my time with REI, I worked with various non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, land managers, and passionate individuals who cared deeply about outdoor recreation in their area.

In their respective home places, these folks were striving for the thing that I enjoy in Niwot on a daily basis: protected open space. They were fighting for interconnected trail systems, better access, increased accessibility, dedicated resources, and additional exposure. They were seeking funding to build and maintain trails and protect their public lands, allin hopes of getting more people outside to experience what their corner of paradise had to offer.

Americans are well accustomed to hearing the age-old advice from doctors that regular exercise is good for your health. But in recent years, more studies are being done that show that, specifically, time in nature is beneficial to health and well-being. To me, this seems both common sense and increasingly difficult to achieve in a world so heavily dominated by time spent in front of our screens.

According to various studies conducted by organizations such as the EPA and Harvard University, Americans, on average, spend approximately 90-95% percent of their time indoors. Author Richard Louv termed this relatively new condition "Nature Deficit Disorder."

And yet, in light of COVID-19, this is when we seem to need this natural connection more than ever. Naturalist and conservation biologist Thomas Lowe Fleischner sums it up in his essay Our Deepest Affinity. "We live in a very odd historical moment: there has never been a time in the history of our species when so few of us have paid attention to the world that surrounds us. The current gush of social dysfunctions - violence, depression, anxiety, alienation, lack of health in so many ways - coincides with the mass sacrifice of human interaction with nature."

As we've learned through the pandemic, time in nature has the potential to cure us of a host of ills. A 2018 peer-reviewed studyby the Great Outdoors Lab concluded that getting outdoors improves physical, mental, and social well-being and that the feeling of awe inspired by nature is an important mechanism driving these effects.

Of course, you need to have access to these outdoor spaces to benefit from them, an important reminder that not everyone is so fortunate. According to the Colorado Trust, a foundation committed to advancing the health and well-being of all Coloradans, across U.S. cities, including Denver, people living in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods often have better access to parks than those living in communities of color and low-income communities.

My brother and his family live in a small town in rural Georgia. The last time I visited, I drove upwards of 90 minutes to the closest state park I could find. It was a lovely little corner of the state with cypress swamps and sandy trails through mossy trees. But heading out for a short hike became an all-afternoon affair with a three-hour round-trip drive - not exactly feasible for a daily outing for a nature fix.

Looking it up later, I found that just over 5% of Georgiais federally managed public lands as opposed to the over 36% of Colorado. By comparison, that means that while I have access to over 24 million acres of federal public lands in Colorado, my brother has only 1.9 million acres of federal public lands in Georgia. Even when you take into account the relative overall size of the two states, Georgia still has significantly less public land. Certainly, as with any state, there are opportunities for outdoor recreation, but my brother has to try quite a bit harder than me to access them.

This access to outdoor recreation is part of why I love living in the Left Hand Valley. And for me, part of my newfound appreciation for the area is to make sure that I always acknowledge what I've got - and actively advocate to protect and conserve our public lands moving forward.

I believe acts of caretaking for our home places can be big and small. Pick up a piece of trash on your next hike. Volunteer for a trail work day or an open space clean-up event. Attend a public hearing about public land management. Learn about the many conservation challenges facing Colorado. Find an issue you care about and dive in to help however you can. Give a little love back to take care of these places where we recreate and also heal.