Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been holding a series of public workshops around the state, so officials can find out what the people of Colorado want to see happen with their park lands and wildlife. Parks and Wildlife representatives will be listening to area residents from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Durango Public Library.
It might be an appropriate time to bring up the future of Lake Nighthorse.
This is the eighth of 11 scheduled meetings. Input from those meetings will be taken into account as the agency forms its 2015 Strategic Plan. The draft of that plan is scheduled to be released for public review this summer and finalized in the fall.
Anyone unable to attend Wednesday’s workshop can still weigh in at http://cpw.state.co.us/StrategicPlan.
The agency will be taking comments until April 3.
Parks and Wildlife is going about this in a considered and deliberate way. And given the importance of the topic, that is fitting.
It began by not rushing into it. The Division of Parks and Wildlife is part of the state’s Department of Natural Resources. It was created by the Legislature in 2011 by merging the former Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation with what had been the Division of Wildlife.
The thinking behind the merger was founded on three ideas: to find efficiencies that work for both state parks and wildlife, to ensure better long-term financial stability for the agency and to improve outdoor recreation opportunities of all sorts for Colorado residents.
But all that is easier to say than to do. The dual areas that Parks and Wildlife must focus on are not antithetical, but neither are they identical. Nor are the cultures of the two former divisions likely to have been the same. Parks and Wildlife officials were wise to give the newly created agency some time to settle in and adjust to the new reality before embarking on plans for the future.
The two former divisions had worked together before the merger on overlapping areas of interest, but now they must take both parks and wildlife into account in all decisions. That can work because they are interrelated. But before 2011, such synergy was not built in to the system.
Parks and Wildlife now highlights the relationship between the two, saying it is in the best interests of all. The agency says young people often have their first outdoors experience in state parks, which function as a gateway to further outdoor recreation. The wildlife side stocks millions of fish in state parks, which then boosts sales of fishing licenses. And more than three-fourths of state parks also offer opportunities for some kind of hunting.
In the end, though, state parks and Colorado wildlife are the property and province of the people of the state. It is their right and responsibility to determine the direction and goals of their management. No one advocates anything other than good care, but subtle changes in focus or emphasis can make big differences over time.
Local residents should share their vision for their state parks and wildlife Wednesday evening. And if that includes a suggestion or two about managing a local lake, all the better.
