Why is Nature, and the People Managing It, Being Left Behind? A Data-Driven Answer

For all its importance and impact, nature is often unseen, underfunded, and overburdened. Despite outdoor recreation accounting for 2.3% of the US GDP, the public lands that enable it receive just a quarter of a penny per tax dollar. That's 0.27% of tax revenue for 616 Million Acres. How does this add up? And, more importantly, how can we fix it?

As I shared in a recent guest lecture to the University of Colorado's Masters in the Environment cohort, the answer lies in data—and not just in collecting it but in learning from it and using it to tell stories that drive action.

The Challenges: A Perfect Storm for Land Manager

1. More Visitors, Fires, and Challenges with Fewer Resources

Visitation to places like Zion National Park has doubled in the last decade, yet staff and budgets have decreased by 25%. Wildfires have doubled since 1980, while Forest Service staffing has been cut in half. These aren't isolated challenges—they're symptoms of an undervalued system being stretched too thin.

2. Stewardship Stops at Property Lines in the US

Ecosystems don't recognize property boundaries, but funding and management often do. In Pitkin County, we found 113 organizations managing connected lands, usually duplicating efforts or working in silos while they share visitors, fire risk, wildlife, and water.

3. The Wrong Tools for the Job

Much of land management is still stuck in the analog age—pen-and-paper forms, outdated spreadsheets, and walkie-talkies. Without the right tools for land management, work is disrupted, critical data gets lost, collaboration becomes an uphill battle, and telling the whole story of an area becomes impossible.

The Role of Data: Bridging the Gaps

From offline in the backcountry to managing the team in the office to battling for funding in the board room, having the right data matters to everyone.

Data Makes the Invisible Visible

People who don't work on trails might just see a strip of dirt. They miss the hundreds of hours, dollars, and details that go into keeping that area preserved. Data helps land managers control, improve, and document this invisible work that keeps trails open, biodiversity protected, and visitors safe.

From Field to City Hall

Data connects every level of stewardship—from rangers in the field to directors advocating for change. For example:

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• Teams: Pitkin County Open Space and Trails and the City of Aspen Open Space
• Rio Grande Trail: 42 miles of trail crossing counties and landowners
• Collaborative data managed with Outway from Rangers helps inform and justify community decision-making on focuses like leash laws, e-bikes, staffing, and funding.

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A Story Worth Sharing

Numbers don't act alone; they need a narrative. Whether a ranger documents a dog chasing deer or a burn plan reduces wildfire risks, these stories inspire action and align stakeholders.

• Weak: We had 137 dog off-leash compliance issues.
• Strong: Of our 137 dog off-leash compliance issues, 42 involved wildlife, including grazing, water access, and hunting. Wildlife is a priority for us, and this is a community challenge we need to address

,*Everyone loves their dogs; this helps management teams communicate why a leash law is essential and compliance's impact on community priorities.

Outway: A Solution for Nature, Built for Land Managers

The land manager's job is to care for the land; ours is to make it easier. Outway came out of the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps program at the University of Washington. Our research with NSF focused on the human systems of land management and how to improve them. Outway is built specifically for the dynamic work of managing nature, built to empower the teams behind nature. We do this with our software by simplifying workflows, enabling collaboration, and prioritizing flexibility. Here's how:

1. Designed for Everyone

Unlike GIS tools that cater to technical and scientific use cases, Outway is as intuitive as Google Maps. Whether you're a ranger navigating property lines or a director managing budgets, it's built to fit the entire team.

2. Collaborative by Default

Outway makes sharing data effortless across agencies, volunteers, and even the public. For example, recording an eroded trail instantly informs maintenance of the work to be done while communicating the needed trail closure to everyone else. This is how a single platform can connect teams across work groups by default.

3. Tailored to the Outdoors

No more shoehorning 20+ corporate desk softwares to help a fraction of your work. Nature is dynamic; it changes, and it's complicated. To support land managers, Outway needs to support everything they do in a way that accounts for this. So, from asset management to wildlife tracking to visitor communication, Outway is built for the field. Anywhere you are, whatever you're working on, it's all in one place connected across everyone you work with.

Best Practices for Using Data in Land Management

Start Small and Build

Pick one goal and nail it. Whether it's tracking maintenance logs or monitoring visitor behavior, simplicity leads to success. What is an achievable, affordable, low-risk place to start?

Large organizations can start with one workgroup or even fewer and see how it scales across the team.

Build Data into Workflows

The best data tools don't make extra work; they remove it. If someone's doing something twice, there's an opportunity to streamline. Can you consolidate, automate, or remove it entirely?

This process needs to work with the workflow, not against it. Recording data should take mere seconds, be rich in detail, and replace unnecessary duplicate data recording tools and methods.

Focus on Collaboration

Break down silos by prioritizing shared stewardship. Data should flow across property lines and between teams. If you have a custom tool for each team, project, etc, it's complicating and fragmenting your data, work, and resources.

With Outway, collaboration across teams is flawless because no one's work is isolated. Tag team members, report observations across properties, and much more.

Tell a Story

Data alone doesn't inspire action. Pair it with stories to make the case for funding, policies, or community support. Use data to fuel what really matters and gain support for change.

With Outway, teams use reports, insights, and rich details to simplify the story of their work so others can understand and get behind their informed decisions.

A Call to Action: Make Data the Default

Nature is too important to leave behind, and we must support the people who manage it. By making data management easy and actionable, we can:

• Efficiently protect our ecosystems from overuse and neglect.
• Advocate for proper funding and staffing.
• Build a future where collaboration is the norm, not the exception.

As I reminded the students in my lecture, data doesn't do anything by itself. It's the stories we tell with it that drive decisions to make drive change. Land managers know their work better than anyone; with data, they can get others to understand what they know to be true. So let's get to work—because nature deserves nothing less.

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