Building connections and collaboration across the Northern Forest is in the Center’s DNA. Since our beginning in 1997, we’ve convened numerous regional gatherings to shape and advance a shared agenda for the region, focusing each one on a timely issue.

In 2018, more than 170 people participated in the Northern Forest Regional Symposium to explore the evolving trends in outdoor recreation and its role as a critical economic driver in the Northern Forest region. The energy of participants spoke volumes about the importance of outdoor recreation to the regional economy and demonstrated our shared commitment to stewardship and passionate enjoyment of the Northern Forest landscape.

We convened the Symposium with the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and the Northern Border Regional Commission, with additional financial support from the Betterment Fund. A 14-member steering committee designed the Symposium with consultation from the Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group.

According to the Outdoor Industry Association, the outdoor recreation economy supports 206,000 jobs with a payroll of $6.3 billion across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The sector generates $22.4 billion in consumer spending and $1.5 billion in state and local tax revenues in the three states. Download overview of regional trends in the recreation economy presented at the Symposium.

Trends and Opportunities for the Region’s People, Communities and Landscape

At the Symposium, regional leaders in outdoor recreation — business owners, civic leaders, private landowners and public officials from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York — dug into the challenges and potential benefits that come with the growing recreation sector, including workforce issues, natural resource and visitor use management, market development, funding for trail and amenity maintenance, technology, collaboration and recreational use of private lands.