"$351 million is added to the U.S. economy every day from recreation on federal lands and waters," that's the headline stat from a new report from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable on public lands and the revenue they deliver to the US economy. For a year, that comes out to $1.2 trillion. And they support over 5 million US jobs throughout the year.
Why am I giving you facts and figures right off the bat? Because I need you all to understand this, as while it may not seem like public lands do much from an outsider's perspective, the cumulative revenue driving these "static" places is truly one of the biggest revenue makers in our nation.
In fact, it's a bigger revenue driver than oil and gas extraction, a bigger revenue driver than agriculture and forestry, a bigger revenue driver than electronics and mining, and a bigger revenue driver than all of our utilities and infrastructure. And by a lot, as all of them combined would barely touch what outdoor recreation does to the US' overall GDP.
