A few weeks after he returned home from his second deployment as a Navy SEAL, Ben Davis was invited by another veteran to climb Gannett Peak, the tallest mountain in Wyoming.
“It was very transformative,” he said.
Davis, who now is the executive director of Veterans Outdoor Advocacy Group, went on to help lead future hiking trips for veterans. He said it became clear that the outdoor experiences were a tangible way to improve veterans’ well-being – and research backs up the physical and mental health benefits.
Most opportunities that allow veterans to participate in outdoor activities are run by nonprofits. Davis said the experiences could be better recognized and integrated into the health care system, including through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
“If the person said, ‘Well, I've been going on these fly fishing trips,’ the VA maybe could cover that, or at a minimum, they could reimburse the provider – the organization that was doing it,” Davis said.
When Congress passed the Accelerating Veterans Recovery Outdoors Act in 2020, it required the departments of Interior and Veterans Affairs to form a joint task force and publish a report identifying the barriers and opportunities for how outdoor recreation on public lands could serve as therapeutic care for veterans.
Davis served on the task force, and the agencies submitted the report to Congress last week.
The top barriers that veterans face in accessing public lands, the group found, included transportation, awareness of programs and accessibility due to physical disability. The task force also identified 42 initial recommendations and narrowed them down to seven.
They include building partnerships between veterans’ outdoors groups and land managers; better facilitating special use permits on public lands for veterans’ groups; starting a wellness challenge for veterans at national parks and improving training for VA providers to promote outdoor experiences.
“There's a lot of interest, and this is not really a new thing, but it is siloed in a sense,” Davis said.
Sheman Neal II, a Marine Corps veteran who directs the Sierra Club’s military outdoors program, applauded the release of the report, which he said was more than a year delayed.
“For years, advocates have pushed for stronger federal coordination to make outdoor recreation and nature-based therapy more accessible to veterans, and this report reflects that sustained work,” he said in a statement.
But Neal said the final report was scaled back from a draft version. That included removing language about specific barriers faced by racial and gender minorities as well as some more actionable recommendations such as establishing a national program office for outdoor recreation at the VA.
Still, some of the ideas are moving forward. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the Veterans Outdoor Rehabilitation Act this year, which would give grants to state veterans’ agencies to develop, or partner with other organizations, on outdoor recreation opportunities for veterans.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
