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Advice to state: Market nature

Montana has something the rest of the country wants.

Darkness. Silence. Solitude.

Associated Press Billings Gazette

Places that widen your eyes. Big animals living where they’re supposed to live. Water running downhill, full of fish. Birds.

"What percentage of the population in the United States cannot see the Milky Way?" asked Ted Eubanks Jr. "The things we once took for granted are now scarce: darkness, scenic vistas, wildlife, fall colors, wildflowers. If you live in downtown Toledo, you have none of that."

To marketer-outdoorsman-promoter Eubanks, such wealth amid scarcity is Montana’s greatest economic asset.

"It’s not a philosophical issue," he said. "It’s business. You have something the rest of the country wants and that can be developed in a way that is sustainable – that doesn’t exceed your limits of acceptable change, but that is real economic development."

Eubanks is president of Fermata Inc. and Great American Trails, a pair of nature tourism development companies headquartered in Austin, Texas.

This month, he began work with Montana business people, wildlife and bird watchers, land managers and politicians to create a statewide nature trail – a series of interconnected driving-looking-hiking-watching sites that show off Montana’s abundant natural amenities.

"The market is huge – 70 million people, urbanites who want to reconnect with what is real," he said. "These people want experiential tourism. They want to sit in silence. They want to watch birds. They want to catch a cutthroat trout."

They are changing the very nature of recreation and travel in this country.

"In an urban world, it’s a long way to the edge of town," Eubanks said after a recent meeting in Missoula. "If your state is blessed with these natural resources, why not take advantage of them?"

"This is the recreational trend in the country right now," he said. "The demand will only increase."

Montana is not the first state to be the target of Eubanks’ enthusiasm; 25 others have already followed his lead.

His native Texas opened the nation’s first driving trail six years ago along the richest birdwatching route in the country. Virginia has designated 1,000 wildlife watching sites in the past two years.

The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail includes more than 300 birding sites along 700 miles of coastline, from the Louisiana border to the Rio Grande River. Three lavishly illustrated road maps guide travelers on their way and help introduce novice birders to the 620 species that inhabit the Lone Star State.

Along the route, a sign bearing the silhouette of a black skimmer designates each site. Some are just a wide spot in the road, Eubanks said. Some are multi-thousand-acre wildlife refuges with miles and miles of trails. All are an economic boon.

The Hummer/Bird Celebration in rural Rockport and Fulton, Texas, delivers $1 million to the local economy in two days of hummingbird-watching each year. The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge attracts visitors who spend an estimated $36 million a year on lodging, meals, gas and sundries.

And 60 percent of the cars on the coastal trail are from out of state, Eubanks said.

"Lots of good old-fashioned money follows good ideas," he said. "Every state or region has its own stories to tell. These trails are like novels. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. They have chapters and a moral and a theme.

"Tell me the story of Montana."

"These trails have just taken off like wildfire," said Deborah Richie-Oberbillig, a Missoula-based consultant in wildlife viewing and interpretive writing. "The tourism people get it. They are seeing the shoulder seasons – what used to be the off-seasons – starting to fill up with people. They’re measuring the success."

Montana’s most immediate opportunity, she said, is the upcoming bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Eubanks agreed.

"The Corps of Discovery was absolutely about nature," he said. "They were meticulous observers of the natural world. Nature and nature-watching was the expedition’s greatest success."

As a marketer of the "out of doors," Eubanks sees Montana as "a time machine" to Western history.

"When people follow the trail or camp where the expedition camped, they’re doing it for the experience," said Richie-Oberbillig. "What can they see and feel and imagine about what it must have been like to be Lewis and Clark? People want their own sense of discovery."

At the Lolo National Forest, wildlife interpretive specialist Sue Reel likes the idea of an initial pair of north-south, east-west routes across Montana.

"Not just birding trails, but wildlife trails," she said. "That really is our strength. There aren’t many places where you can see grizzly bears and sandhill cranes."

Eubanks’ approach to trail development emphasizes the local level. Each community along the trail develops its own sites – with help from Eubanks and others – and is then linked to other communities by the trail’s logo and resulting series of maps.

"Instead of just zooming from Yellowstone to Glacier, people could grab our map and take several days to do all this tremendous wildlife viewing along the Rocky Mountain Front," Richie-Oberbillig said. "They could drive into Choteau, for example, and here would be these maps and signs and viewing sites."

By developing a nature trail, a state eliminates the shotgun approach to tourism, Richie-Oberbillig said.

"You give people these sample itineraries," she said. "Here is the perfect three-day trip. Here is a way to do the whole thing in a month. And people start keeping track of the trails they’ve visited. They start telling friends."

And don’t discount the value of in-state tourism, she added. "There are people who live in Montana who don’t know what’s here. We want to get them out on the trail, too."

Eubanks will be back in the state next month for a series of meetings with state leaders, making his pitch, meeting with a newly formed Montana nature trail task force, hoping to create a buzz.

"You live in a town where elk still flourish on the hillsides," he said. "That’s a great story. Part of what I do is help communities recognize what it is they’re proud of. What are their talents? Their treasures?"

"I am extremely interested in the opportunities that exist in Montana," Eubanks said. "This state is absolutely and abundantly blessed. There are places in the world where it is never dark, and people miss that. They didn’t know how important it was until it was gone.

"Montanans knew. They held onto some of these things. For that, we can all be grateful."

Copyright 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

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