Today, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) praised passage of the Great American Outdoors Act in the United States Senate.
The bill, long supported by ASLA and the landscape architects they represent, would require Congress to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and create the National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restorations Fund to help address maintenance backlogs in national parks and public lands.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park | Photo by Ryan Marthaller courtesy of National Park Service
“Due in large part to the ongoing pandemic, people are rediscovering the true value of our national, state, and local parks and open spaces–and how important it is to maintain them properly. As the designers and planners of these spaces, landscape architects know exactly how damaging the chronic underfunding of maintenance programs is,” said Roxanne Blackwell, Hon. ASLA, Co-Interim Executive Vice President/CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
“ASLA’s worked hard to permanently and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Act (LWCF) and address the maintenance backlog in our parks–and with the Great American Outdoors Act, we can finally accomplish both of those goals. We fully support this critical piece of legislation and will not stop working until it finally becomes law.”
