Email this article

The Unchanging Answer

By Jan Nesset

While campaigning for the presidency on July 2, 2008, Barack Obama addressed America's challenges by saying "the American people are not the problem - they are the answer." The answer struck home in November and - zoom ahead - America's 44th president signed the massive economic stimulus package into law on Feb. 17.

If the $787 billion package follows the plan, it is estimated that 3.5 million jobs will be either created or saved over the next two years. For Four Corners states, according to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that means 70,000 jobs in Arizona, 59,000 in Colorado, 22,000 in New Mexico, and 32,000 in Utah.

Jobs are welcome. According to the stimulus plan, many of the jobs in our region will engage energy and environmental projects. On the short list of public recipients, the Forest Service will receive $1.15 billion for maintenance and construction projects and for wildland fire management. The National Park Service gets $750 million for construction and maintenance projects, and $3.2 billion will be made available for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants.

The jobs are needed, the work is necessary. But if we are to keep our eye on the prize, which is the enduring protection and conservation of our public lands, the plans afforded by the stimulus awards should not curtail the ongoing need for Americans to volunteer to work on public lands projects.

As contributing editor Michael Wolcott wrote in "No Pay? No Problem!" [November/December 2008], "volunteering can change your life." Change - your - life.

Change is a mantra of the new administration, but there's nothing new about giving back. The stimulus money provides a boost toward enacting public lands improvements where it is needed, which is at long last a change for the better; but long-lasting and meaningful change rests on the backs of the volunteers who have the foresight to see that stimulus money will run out, that jobs come and go, and that public lands as a legacy, a national need and right are intended to last forever.