October 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 35

Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department

Heat and hydration warnings in
the Phoenix Mountain Preserve at
the start of the highly popular trail
to Piestewa Peak caution hikers of
danger if they are unprepared for
the 100-degree-plus conditions.

door recreation companies are becoming much more vocal in advocacy.
Amy Roberts, CEO of the influential
Outdoor Industry Association, says,
" Outdoor recreation must not become
partisan. We must find a way to talk to
decision makers and elected officials in
a way that communicates our concerns. "
Roberts says that from a business perspective, the more variable the weather
is and the more severe the storms and
extreme weather events are, the more
impact climate change will have on the
recreation industry. " She says that one
result of a changing climate is that more
companies are taking a much more active
role in advocacy. " Many companies have
been doing so individually. But, I think
it will become industrywide very soon.
Companies are more willing to talk to
their consumers about what matters to
them and, in turn, are using their corporate messaging and marketing skills to
advance conservation goals. "
With regard to industry trends, Roberts says, " Climate change has made it
imperative for certain recreation providers to adapt quickly and winter sports

resorts are the first to do so. Music festivals, summer events, all season occupancy - these are some of the best ways
that the industry is innovatively adapting
to climate change. "
Local Parks and Recreation
Increasingly Affected
At the local and regional level, public
parks and recreation are being affected
as much if not more than commercial
recreation. For example, increasingly unpredictable weather in the Denver region
now plays havoc with the agency's maintenance schedules, preventing the agency
from making its facilities and fields ready
for seasonal use. " Denver was the poster child for four seasons of recreation, "
says Allegra " Happy " Haynes, the director of Denver Parks and Recreation.
" We traditionally defined our recreation
year into four three-month seasons, and
the weather cooperated beautifully. Well,
that is no longer the case - it just doesn't
happen that way anymore. "
" What can you do when you have 100
days of Indian summer in the late fall
and early winter followed by wet winters

and late springs? Our fields are simply
not ready to use by spring, " says Haynes.
" We have a great demand for our athletic
fields to be ready for our spring soccer
league. The sport is growing enormously in popularity and that's great, but we
cannot allow these leagues to irrevocably
damage fields for the whole year if we
open them too early, " Haynes says.
Michael Kalvort, director of parks and
recreation in Virginia Beach, Virginia,
says, " Sea-level rise and recurrent flooding has been affecting our entire city and
our park and recreation system. Last
year, on one day we got 15 inches of rain
overnight. The ground was saturated
from previous rains and it could just not
take it anymore. We had communities
that suffered real hardship. "
" I take climate change very seriously and
very personally, " Kalvort says. " Last year, I
was flooded out of my home by Hurricane
Matthew. We still have people recovering
from that storm in October 2016. But as
bad as the damages were, they had one
beneficial effect - they helped our city
to take the changes that are occurring seriously. The challenge for us is to educate

W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7 |

Parks & Recreation

October 2017 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2017 - Parks & Recreation