Higher Collectively: The REI Cooperative Motion Community Group Celebrates Historic Wins

What if the saying “Many palms make gentle work” utilized to inspiring actual, lasting coverage change for all times outdoors? Effectively, excellent news: It does, due to the REI Cooperative Motion Community, a change-making platform the place co-op members mobilize towards our shared objectives of defending areas we love, increasing out of doors entry and supporting initiatives that deal with local weather change.  

Since 2021, the Cooperative Motion Community has outfitted greater than 350,000 folks—REI Co-op Members, employees, prospects, nonprofit companions and extra—with the assets and knowledge they should elevate their voices and make a distinction. Collectively, we’ve despatched greater than 1.25 million messages to legislators and different decision-makers, leading to astounding wins for each folks and the planet.  

Listed here are just some of the REI Co-op Member neighborhood’s victories. 

Higher Trails

Get able to run and trip on improved native trails due to $45 million in funding for the Energetic Transportation Infrastructure Funding Program (ATIIP), which gives grants to assist communities construct and join path networks for pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair customers and extra. These path enhancements will assist cut back automobile dependency throughout communities and supply protected, clear methods for extra U.S. residents to get the place they should go, all whereas decreasing site visitors and air pollution and serving to folks be lively outdoor.  

Along with our companions from Rails to Trails Conservancy, the Cooperative Motion Community mobilized greater than 18,000 REI Co-op neighborhood members to help the creation and full funding of this program by Congress – constructing on present infrastructure to make sustainable transportation and recreation a actuality.  

More healthy State Parks

State parks in Texas welcome practically 10 million annual guests, and but the state has ranked 35^th within the nation for park acreage per capita. In 2023, voters in Texas stated sure to the way forward for their state park system by voting to create the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund, a $1 billion fund to increase and enhance public lands throughout the state, all with out rising Texans’ taxes. This fund will assist shield land and water assets, deal with areas strained by overcrowding, and usually enhance parkgoers’ entry and expertise in these stunning locations.  

In partnership with the Texas Coalition for State Parks and 90 different organizations, REI Co-op Members have helped assure that future generations of Texans and vacationers can take pleasure in world-class parks and guarded pure areas all through the Lone Star State.

New and Expanded Nationwide Monuments

America’s wild areas are extra than simply stunning; they’re culturally, traditionally and spiritually significant to numerous Indigenous individuals who have stewarded them for hundreds of years, and to various nature-deprived communities throughout the nation. For greater than a century, establishing, increasing and defending these websites with nationwide monument designation has been a strong technique to preserve these locations for the enjoyment of all.  

“The mountains have to be protected, as a result of they’re our operators for our prayers,” says Carletta Tilousi, Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition Coordinator and Havasupai tribal member. “They’re our antennas, in order that our prayers can attain out into the cosmos and onto the heavens.” The Havasupai have lived within the Grand Canyon for hundreds of years, and had been amongst a number of tribal and conservationist organizations that REI Co-op partnered with to encourage monument designation for seven vital websites:  

• Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon Nationwide Monument 
• San Gabriel Mountains Nationwide Monument Enlargement 
• Berryessa Snow Mountain Nationwide Monument Enlargement 
• Chuckwalla Nationwide Monument and Enlargement of Joshua Tree Nationwide Park 
• Nice Bend of the Gila 
• Dolores River Canyon 
• Sáttítla–Medication Lake Highlands 

“A monument designation would imply that our animals can be protected,” Tilousi continuessays. “And in addition, our historic trails and our historic burial websites.”  

In 2024, President Biden awarded nationwide monument designations or expansions to Baaj Nwaavjo I’ta Kukveni–Acenstral Footprints of the Grand Canyon; Berryessa Snow Mountain Nationwide Monument and Molok Luyuk; and the San Gabriel Mountains Nationwide Monument. You possibly can nonetheless use your voice to help the remaining monuments by becoming a member of the REI Cooperative Motion Community, tribal leaders and nonprofits throughout the nation in supporting the Mobilizing for Monuments coalition. 

E-Bike Incentives

Decreasing our dependency on automobile journey can bolster our planet’s well being in addition to our personal security and well-being: Transportation accounts for practically 30% of greenhouse fuel emissions yearly in the USA, and the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration reported 42,795 motorcar accident–associated deaths in 2022. The rising reputation of e-bikes is permitting extra folks to journey effectively without having to replenish their fuel tank, and electric-bike know-how makes touring over longer distances and difficult terrain extra accessible. Nonetheless, e-bikes are significantly costlier than conventional bicycles, which may make them out of attain for a lot of.  

The REI Cooperative Motion Community has championed a number of metropolis and state measures to cut back the price of e-bikes. In 2023, legislators in Minnesota and Washington, D.C., handed incentive applications overlaying or reimbursing a share of e-bike purchases; in June of 2024, the Atlanta metropolis council handed its personal e-bike rebate pilot program. 

This fall, voters throughout the nation authorized practically $26 billion in native bike initiatives, together with e-bike incentives. But there are nonetheless alternatives to help applications to increase entry for folks of all earnings ranges entry to low-carbon transportation: Take motion right now by telling Congress to cross the E-BIKE ACT and provide a 30% federal tax credit score of as much as $1,500 on the acquisition of recent e-bikes, or in the event you dwell in New York and Oregon, let your leaders know you help e-bike incentives for residents.  

Investing in Out of doors Futures

In accordance with the Belief for Public Land, greater than 100 million people within the U.S.—notably these with decrease incomes, these residing in city areas, or who lack accessible transportation—wrestle to take pleasure in out of doors areas near residence. To fight this, REI Co-op has invested in and partnered with neighborhood organizations who actively work to guard public lands, create extra native parks and enhance entry for hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the nation.  

In New Mexico, the passage of the bipartisan Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund, established the first-ever devoted supply of everlasting funding for statewide conservation applications. Thanks partly to the advocacy of our neighborhood, a complete of $400 million can be devoted to supporting and enhancing present initiatives and infrastructure. 

“The legacy fund is about as much as be sort of like a retirement account,” explains Western Useful resource Advocates coverage supervisor Brittany Fallon, Ph.D., who teamed up with the Cooperative Motion Community staff in advocating for the mission. “It generates compound curiosity over time, similar to your retirement account. The extra we make investments, the extra assets we’re going to have for on-the-ground initiatives that have an effect on New Mexicans, and this contains issues that have an effect on actually everybody within the state.” A noncomprehensive checklist contains wildfire and drought mitigation, initiatives to enhance river well being and guarantee New Mexicans have clear ingesting water, wildlife habitat and inhabitants safety, path and different recreation infrastructure upkeep, cultural and historic website preservation, and expanded entry to the outside for all kids within the state.  

REI Co-op was based on the concept that we will accomplish way more after we work collectively, and we proceed to be a unique sort of firm, devoted not solely to having fun with our time outdoor, however to defending and enhancing entry to it for future generations.  

Out of doors Recreation for All

Brief for “Increasing Public Lands Out of doors Recreation Experiences Act,” the bipartisan EXPLORE Act is without doubt one of the most consequential out of doors recreation acts proposed since 1963. It’s designed to boost and increase out of doors recreation alternatives throughout the nation, from adaptive trails to long-distance biking to mountain climbing and past. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) launched the package deal—which took greater than a decade to draft in full—to the Home in November 2023, and it there in April 2024—with zero opposition. The EXPLORE Act handed within the Senate Dec. 19 through the post-election “lame duck” session that’s utilized by a sitting Congress to deal with pressing payments and different issues earlier than the elected officers take workplace. REI Co-op—alongside the Nationwide Recreation and Park Affiliation, PeopleForBikes, Out of doors Alliance, Entry Fund, Worldwide Mountain Biking Affiliation, Out of doors Alliance for Children and Belief for Public Land, amongst others—has been a crucial participant within the creation of this large coverage package deal. 

EXPLORE builds on the momentum for out of doors coverage, which has skyrocketed over the previous 10 years due to elevated consciousness concerning the myriad social, emotional, psychological and bodily advantages of spending high quality time outdoors.

In sum, the EXPLORE Act will enhance entry to our nation’s public lands and waters by:

• Enhancing out of doors entry for present and previous navy service members, people with disabilities, and youngsters.
• Streamlining the allowing course of for outfitters and guides, and decreasing charges for small companies.
• Coordinating federal businesses to help and promote outdoor-based missions, from recreation to conservation and administration.
• Defending rock-climbing in a number of the sports activities’ most iconic locations and creating new long-distance bike trails.
• Addressing outdated and missing infrastructure in gateway communities, and funding out of doors infrastructure in underserved communities.

Study extra concerning the EXPLORE Act right here.

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