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RECREATION
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For many people who lead increasingly
sedentary and indoor lives, outdoor
recreation is a way to reconnect with
the natural world. |
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More and more people are getting outside and into
our National Forests to play. But while the U.S.
Forest Service welcomes all types of recreation
on National Forest land, the number of visitors
has increased dramatically in recent years, and
this rising use has caused damage to the forests
and watersheds.
Forest Service managers are working with visitor
and user groups to control damage due to recreation,
but unmanaged recreation remains a big problem.
The National Forest Foundation puts unmanaged
recreation and ecological damage due to recreation
use on its list of top threats to our National
Forests and has made mitigating these damages
a main priority.
According to the National Forest Service, over
214 million recreational visits occurred on our
National Forests in 2001. All of these eager people
require some amenities, be they access roads,
bathrooms, boat launches,
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Outdoor
recreation - In the past thirty
years, outdoor recreation activities,
such as hiking, boating, wildlife
viewing, skiing, hunting and fishing
have become popular ways to restore
and refresh our minds and bodies after
work.
Read Special
Places, the Forest Service's recreation,
travel, and tourism newsletter. |
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maintained trails and trailheads or interpretive
signs. The amenities, coupled with the activities
visitors came to do, affect the ecological integrity
of our landscapes and waterways in different ways.
Without proper care and management, the areas
we visit could lose those special features –
scenic beauty, abundance of wildlife, solitude,
fresh air, healthy forests, clean rivers and lakes
– that attracted us in the first place.
Impaired resources and ecosystems are an inevitable
consequence of unmanaged recreation, regardless
of the form, and so landscapes must be managed
to allow for no more use that what they can handle.
This idea of managing use to allow for no more
than the landscape can tolerate is referred to
as the carrying capacity of the land. Each type
of landscape has its own carrying capacity based
on the resilience of the ecosystem. For example
fragile desert ecosystems have a much lower carrying
capacity than temperate rain forests because damaged
rain forests can rejuvenate themselves more quickly
and easily than the deserts can.
PAGE 2:
Mitigating Ecological Damage Due to Recreation
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