Great American Outdoors Act with Baratunde Thurston
Seeing the impact first hand on the Grand Mesa, Uncompaghre and Gunnison National Forests
2024 marks the four-year anniversary of the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). We partnered with Baratunde Thurston, host of the PBS show America Outdoors to learn more about the impact of this legislation on communities in Colorado.
Summer of 2024, Baratunde visited the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests to see projects first hand.
Why was GAOA passed?
Infrastructure throughout National Forests requires maintenance every year and it has been woefully underfunded. For decades this lack of funding has accumulated billions of dollars in deferred maintenance – or scheduled maintenance that doesn’t get done.
Every instance of deferred maintenance puts the U.S. Forest Service even further behind, creating a backlog that keeps growing. Today, the Forest Service has a deferred maintenance backlog of more than $5.2 billion.
With the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020, the bill provides federal land management agencies with critical resources to address deferred maintenance backlog on our public lands.
Help us continue to improve our National Forests for future generations and donate today.
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