Outdoor activities on downswing

The call of the great outdoors has become a lot harder to hear for much of the nation, with people staying away from parks to play video games and surf the Internet, according to one study, but Connecticut appears to be bucking the trend, with a slight increase in visits to state parks and more and more land set aside as open space despite plummeting hunting and fishing license sales.

The best memories Mary Heffernon of Wallingford can recall revolve around the outdoors. “I just remember as a child the best thing in the world was to be out in the woods,” she said. “The worst thing in the world was to be called in to dinner. I was so very happy there. That’s still the best stress reliever for me – hiking and being outside, even if I can only fit in a 15-minute walk.”

Heffernon is a member of the Wallingford Land Trust and the Conservation Commission, groups that try to preserve the natural world from increasing suburban sprawl. The idea that, nationally, fewer and fewer people are heading out to enjoy such preserved lands worries her. “It’s the sorriest thing of all,” she said.
Most of the nation is experiencing a dramatic decrease in per capita state and national park usage, according to a recent study titled “Evidence for a fundamental and pervasive shift away from nature-based recreation.” Co-authors Oliver R. W. Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic state that the nation has seen a 1.0 to 1.3 percent drop in per capita park visits per year since 1987, for a total drop of between 18 and 25 percent. This follows 50 straight years of growth.
The drop coincides with a per capita increase in video game and computer use, as well as movie watching, during the same period, according to Pergams, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Pergams coined the phrase videophilia, or the love of video, to explain the trend and to exist alongside the term biophilia, or the love of living systems, which explains why time spent outdoors has traditionally been popular.
Citing other studies, Pergams said that when children spend less time outside, they’re less likely to value and want to preserve nature as they get older, and it also risks their health because they’re getting less exercise and failing to experience the psychological benefits of being outdoors. “Videophilia – it’s a huge force,” he said.
Less fishing and hunting
In Connecticut, the extent to which this is taking place is debatable. Per capita state park usage has increased slightly in recent years – from 1.98 visits per person in 1990 to 2.08 in 2007, a 5.05 percent increase.
At the same time, some popular outdoor pastimes are decreasing in popularity. Across Connecticut, fishing license sales dropped 32.73 percent from 1990 to 2006. Hunting license sales dropped 40.49 percent during the same period. According to a 2005 state Department of Environmental Protection study, 30.3 percent of Connecticut residents said they never visit state parks, while 22.9 said they never use municipal parks.
Even while state park visits have increased slightly, some worry that Connecticut may soon go the way of the rest of the nation.

“This deserves a lot more investigation,” said Tom Morrissey, the DEP’s bureau chief for outdoor recreation, and a Meriden resident. “Over the last two generations we’ve seen a real change towards indoor play. When I was a kid, it was punishment to stay inside. Now, they don’t know how to camp or hike long distances. They don’t really know what to do when they’re outside, and you don’t see parents teaching their kids.”
Morrissey’s theory as to why state park usage is increasing has less to do with increasing interest in being outdoors and more to do with the fact that most of the land that’s not being set aside as open space is being developed. While woods surrounded many neighborhoods 50 years ago, that land likely holds more houses today, he said. As more and more land gets developed, people have no choice but to go to parks if they want to be in the wild. “The nature of the landscape is changing in a way so that the only open space is a state park,” he said.
Connecticut has the fourth highest population density in the country, with 702.9 people per square mile. Texas, by contrast, is the 28th densest state and only averages 79.6 people per square mile.
Mike Roberts, an avid outdoorsman and Meriden resident, frequently traipses through the remaining wilderness in the area to hunt and fish, and writes a regular outdoor column for the Record-Journal. Roberts says he’s certainly noticed the decline in hunting and fishing, though he thinks there are likely a host of factors contributing.
“At one time around here we had thousands of acres,” he said. “If you look around now, what do you see: houses and industry. There’s not many places you can hunt, and kids just aren’t being brought into it.”
The faces Roberts sees at local rod and gun clubs are increasingly older, he said. The clubs have also had to cap membership to preserve the wildlife left on shrinking parcels, which further discourages involvement.
Another factor may be the pace of modern life, Roberts said. He gives the example of one of his sons who grew up hunting and fishing and now lives in Georgia. His son almost never gets out anymore because of the pressures of work and raising a family.
When Roberts was going to school, his teachers and other adults would talk to the students about their own outdoor pursuits and encourage them. That is less and less the case, he said. When he got a new hunting knife for Christmas, he brought it to school to show his friends, which would now be considered a dangerous security threat.
“It’s changed so much,” he said. “Everywhere you look you see changes. Kids are stuck on their computers. They can do anything they want on the computer – they can go hunting if they want,” he said.
Wallingford Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. has been a strong advocate of preserving open space in his 13 terms in office.
“The character of the community is in part defined by having open space to provide rural vistas so you can enjoy the beauty of natural surroundings,” he said. The effort that preserving land requires is well worth it, he said. Those who care to experience nature directly reap the health benefits of outdoor exercise, and the overall environment is improved by the oxygen trees create.
“You come up with all kinds of reasons for why sizable open-space areas are important,” he said. “I don’t think that is negated by certain groups using it less. It doesn’t mean that they don’t enjoy driving alongside of it.”
State’s open-space goals
Across the state, people seem to agree with Dickinson. The General Assembly adopted a conservation and development plan in 2005 that calls for setting aside 21 percent of Connecticut’s land area as open space. The aim is to have 10 percent held by the state and another 11 percent held by municipalities and nonprofit conservation groups. The DEP is given $10 million-$15 million a year to purchase land, said Morrissey, the DEP outdoor recreation bureau chief.
The state has set aside about 6 percent of the total land area and municipalities and nonprofits hold about 6 percent, Morrissey said, more than halfway to the goal.
“We try to be opportunistic with our money,” he said. “With the downturn in subprime mortgage rates, we’re seeing another good market emerge, so we’ll be buying a lot of land. Slowly but surely we’re closing on our 10-percent goal.”
Cheshire Land Trust member Tim Slocum agreed that people are increasingly more interested in indoor pursuits. “People do play their video games and sort of live life behind four walls,” he said.
But Slocum, a past president of the land trust, believes that even if people are not actively engaged outdoors, they still have an innate desire to preserve nature. “I think they see the benefits of it even if they don’t benefit personally,” he said.
He cited the example of the recently acquired Ives Farm on Cheshire Street. Neighbors bordering the farm had raised money for a portion of the property that was not willed to the land trust. They valued preserving the rural character of the area, he said, even if they couldn’t use it for recreation.
But worried about what an ambivalent population might mean to the future of conservation, the DEP is attempting to stay ahead of other states by drawing residents to state parks. It has launched the “No Child Left Inside” campaign.
Diane Joy, the DEP’s assistant director of education for state parks, believes that a significant portion of two generations of Americans have never learned how to have fun outdoors. When families come out to “No Child Left Inside” events, the DEP is often showing not only the kids how to hike, shoot a bow and arrow or follow a map with a compass, but also the parents, who are equally unaware.
In 2006, 400 families came to events. In 2007, 750 attended. Joy expects 2008 to have a higher attendance still, and the DEP has helped spread the program to other New England states, she said.
The lack of outdoor exposure may have created an element of fear about the outdoors that is stopping young people and adults from getting out, she said. If people watch shows about natural disasters and the threat of animals, they probably have an unreasonable expectation of danger. “Parents are afraid to let their kids just go,” Joy said. “If we can have people understand that it’s OK to go into your yard, and then a park, and then a national park, we’ll do OK.
“National trends show what might happen in Connecticut,” Joy added. “We want people to feel connected to the environment. We’re saying, ‘Get outdoors, be with your family, be comfortable.’ People will have a stronger land ethic. It’s not just parks, it’s the entire ecosystem.”
aperlot@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2234

By Andrew Perlot, Record-Journal staf