Tennessee creates new office for ‘outdoor recreation’

Tennessee’s environmental agency has a new office tasked with getting people outdoors. 

On Wednesday, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation announced its first “Office of Outdoor Recreation.” The office will be part of the department’s Bureau of Conservation, which manages Tennessee’s state parks, natural areas, archaeology and outdoor recreation resources. 

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“This new office is meant to advance conservation and improve access to the outdoors for our residents and visitors for the state of Tennessee,” said Brian Clifford, the office’s director. Clifford previously served as a director — with a different title — in the Bureau of Conservation. 

The office will also function as a point of contact for cities, counties and community groups to connect with the state on some conservation work. 

“We encourage people to reach out to the office, see how they can get involved, and see how we might partner with them to improve conservation and outdoor recreation at the local level,” Clifford said. 

One initiative on the office’s agenda is developing new water trails, which are recreational routes across rivers, creeks and lakes for activities like kayaking and canoeing. Tennessee contains 29 reservoir lakes and about 61,000 miles of rivers and streams. 

The state has not recently addressed how it will protect these waterways or other outdoor attractions. Freshwater ecosystems like rivers, lakes and wetlands, for example, are considered the most degraded habitats on Earth. Since 1970, global freshwater vertebrate populations have declined by about 80%, while freshwater habitats have been rapidly cleared for development or damaged by extreme weather worsened by the burning of fossil fuels. 

These threats are happening in Tennessee. Earlier this year, a conservation group named the Duck River, a popular outdoor recreation spot, as one of the most endangered rivers in the nation due to development and unsustainable water withdrawals. Additionally, Tennessee’s state legislature considered a bill this year to remove regulations for about 430,000 acres of wetlands.