Increased protections for public lands, more investments in public lands and the agencies that manage them, and reforming regulations that pertain to mining and energy development on public lands are among the strategies an advocacy group for outdoor recreation wants to see the country follow.

Along with increasing recreational opportunities for human-powered recreation, the Outdoor Alliance sees its recommendations as a way to help fight climate change.

"Protecting nature is a win-win-win solution, and we are in a critical moment to secure a future with more protected land and water. Expanding land protections, funding climate and the outdoors, and passing conservation reforms and strong recreation policy are four priorities that will provide climate benefits and sustainable, equitable outdoor recreation access for everyone in America," the group says in the opening pages of A Vision For Protecting Nature report released Wednesday.

The report hinges on four areas that could drive conservation: Land Protections, Investments and Funding, Reforms, and Recreation Policy.

Garnering Congressional support could be difficult, though, as the Republican Party, along with some Democrats, has opposed regulatory reforms to the General Mining Act of 1872 and which might impact the oil and gas sectors.

"Meeting our climate goals requires an urgent and rapid shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources, and this shift has implications for the management of public lands and waters. We must ramp down and end fossil fuel development on public lands and waters as expeditiously as possible," the policy paper says. "At the same time, our country must meet the material demands of producing clean energy, which will require mineral resources that are currently produced under a 150-year-old management regime that fails to adequately safe guard resources. There is an urgent need to reform both oil and gas and hardrock minerals management on our public lands and waters."

As laid out in the paper, OA says there's a need for "necessary reforms for oil and gas leasing" to "help protect recreation and conservation values," and that the Mining Act "does not include basic safeguards for clean air and clean water standards around remediation, or guidelines for tribal consultation."

In terms of land protections, OA urges President Biden to designate additional national monuments. "Numerous locally-driven landscape protection campaigns have potential to expand recreation access, protect cultural resources, preserve biodiversity, and address climate change. The outdoor recreation community can be a key partner for these campaigns," the report states.

Additionally, the organization wants the Biden administration to use the Federal Lands Management Policy Act to "remove the threat of inappropriate mining claims from landscapes where recreation and conservation values are too important to threaten with new mines and where other forms of protection are inappropriate or not viable" by withdrawing areas from potential leasing.

More reliance should be given to tribal input for conservation of lands and waters, the report says.

In other areas, the report calls for:

• Increased protection of old-growth forests.
• Better balance by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management when it comes to development and conservation of public lands it manages.
• Better balance by the U.S. Forest Service between recreation, forest restoration, and logging when it comes to managing national forestlands.
• Better funding of the land-management agencies "to fulfill their responsibilities, meet the demand for recreation, and keep pace with rising costs. Currently, land managers are having trouble filling staff roles because of issues like the government pay-scale not matching rising costs due to inflation and housing shortages."
• Reauthorization of the Great American Outdoors Act to ensure the Land and Water Conservation Fund remains fully funded and that billons of dollars continue to flow to the land-management agencies to address deferred maintenance needs.
• Congressional passage of America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, which "reflects longstanding priorities of the outdoor recreation community to more effectively manage public lands for recreation and improve special use permitting."