In an effort to promote conservation and community-based recreation, President Obama on Friday launched The America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.

Headed by the Offices of the Interior and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Council on Environmental Quality, the initiative will form coalitions with state and local governments as well as the private sector.

President Obama channeled Theodore Roosevelt in a speech given at the Interior Department, in which he said that although "I will probably never shoot a bear,” he holds a strong connection to that legacy.

"I feel an abiding bond with the land," Obama said. "I do for the same reasons that all of you do. The same reasons families go outside for a picnic, or campers spend the night in a national park, or sportsmen track game through the woods or wade deep into a river. It's a recognition passed down from one generation to the next."

Among the goals outlined in an a memorandum of the initiative issued Friday are “to reconnect Americans, especially children, to America’s rivers and waterways” and “use science-based management practices to restore and protect our lands and waters for future generations.”

Although few specifics were listed, Obama also discussed the prospect of job growth.

"We're launching this strategy because it's the right thing to do—because, as TR said, we must not mar the work of the ages," Obama said. "But we're also doing it because it's the right thing to do for our economy. It's how we're going to spur job creation in the tourism industry and the recreation industry."

Click here for the complete story. —Tom Tiberio