America's greatest outdoor spots? Obama picks 100

To reconnect Americans to nature, the Obama administration is promoting 100 projects nationwide -- two in each states -- such as new urban parks, wildlife refuges and walking trails as well as completing gaps in Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail and restoring the Bronx' Harlem River.

The projects are part of President Obama's Great Outdoors Initiative, announced last year, and result from 50 meetings between state leaders and senior federal officials. They won't receive new federal funding but technical support and guidance.

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"These projects represent what states believe are among the best investments in the nation to support a healthy, active population, conserve wildlife and working lands, and create travel, tourism and outdoor-recreation jobs across the nation," Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Thursday afternoon in announcing the final 50-State America's Great Outdoors Report. They include:

• 24 projects to restore and provide recreational access to rivers and other waterways – such as establishing the Connecticut River as a National Blueway and expanding recreational opportunities at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in the Twin Cities;
• 23 projects to construct new trails or improve recreational sites – such as completing gaps in the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin and expanding the multi-use Shingle Creek Trail in Florida;
• 20 projects that will create and enhance urban parks – such as rehabilitating wetlands habitat and building new outdoor recreational opportunities on Chicago's South Side and increasing river access at Roberto Clemente State Park and restoring the Harlem River in the Bronx; and
• 13 projects that will restore and conserve America's most significant landscapes – such as conserving Montana's Crown of the Continent, establishing the Flint Hills of Kansas as a new easement-based conservation area, and conserving the native grasslands of North and South Dakota.
• 11 initiatives to establish new national wildlife refuges, national park units and other federal designations.
• Five projects that will assist states and communities to protect key open space and five initiatives to educate young people and connect them to nature.

When Obama announced his initiative, he asked for leadership from the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

In the next month, Salazar will name an Interior official to lead each project utilizing the current resources from its bureaus, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"The America's Great Outdoors Initiative turns the conventional wisdom about the federal government's role in conservation on its head," Salazar said in a statement. "Rather than dictate policies or conservation strategies from Washington, it supports grassroots, locally driven initiatives."