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Visitors get an invitation

By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writer

      Interior Secretary Gale Norton was in Utah on Thursday to encourage Olympic visitors to experience America's public lands.
      "Utah is now on the world stage," Norton told a small group of journalists at the Utah Media Center in Salt Lake City. "Here, visitors can see the natural treasures in the state, from the forested slopes of the snow-clad Wasatch Mountains to the red-rock wonders of Arches, Canyonlands, and Zion national parks."
      Norton is in Utah to attend Olympic opening ceremonies and some downhill skiing events. While here, she took the opportunity to announce a cooperative effort among state and federal agencies to boost tourism at parks. Tourism declined significantly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
      "Tourism was hard hit," Norton said. "My first trip after (Sept. 11) was to come to the Salt Lake airport and encourage people to get back into the air. And I'm pleased to see that the world has come out."
      Norton encouraged visitors to tour an exhibit called the "Western Experience" at Soldier Hollow, the Olympic venue for cross country and biathlon competitions. That exhibit — a cooperative effort by the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and Northern Ute tribe — features log cabins, covered wagons, wild horses and American Indians in traditional dress.
      It's one example of the collaboration known as the America's Public Land coalition, a partnership of agencies that formed to focus on ways to draw more visitors to public lands.
      Working together, the agencies developed an integrated approach to informing visitors about parks, refuges and recreational areas and their conservation.
      In Utah, more than three-fourths of the land base consists of public lands managed by the federal or state agencies. The tourism draw is a major part of the economy, she added. More than 17 million visitors annually spend upward of $4 billion in the state. About 9 million of those visitors come to national parks.
      Norton said she hoped the agencies' cooperation would continue.
      "This approach can be as great a legacy to Utah as the stadiums and ski resorts built for the Games," she said.

E-mail: donna@desnews.com