Recreation Facility Analysis (RFA) formerly RSFMP

The national forests and grasslands of the US Forest Service’s Northern Region stretch from the prairies and badlands of the Dakotas, through eastern Montana’s rolling hills and isolated ponderosa pine woodlands, to the rugged mountains and steep timbered canyons in western Montana and northern Idaho. Twenty-five million acres provide for a multitude of uses with recreation opportunities as diverse as these lands.

While providing a wide array of recreation opportunities, some recreation sites on the national forests and grasslands are beginning to see the effects of time and years of use. Many of the Forest Service’s developed recreation sites were built some 30-50 years ago, and are reaching the end of their designed life. Visitor preferences as well as demographics throughout the Northern Rockies have also changed with some recreation sites now seeing infrequent visitation while others are seeing use and numbers expand. As our local communities continue to grow and recreation use and desires shift, the timing is right to assess and take a more strategic look at how we can optimize public enjoyment of developed recreation sites and services today and into the future.

Learn more about the details with these links:

YOUR FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT!

Throughout this process, your comments and suggestions are invited, and vital, to helping ensure that the results of the RFA process meet visitor needs and offer the best recreation opportunities in places important to people.

Including the public has always been a key part of RFA. When the RFA was first envisioned, the process emphasized using public survey results and demographic information as part of the agency doing it’s “homework” first, prior to presenting its ideas to the public. Since then, we’ve realized that many members of the public would like to be involved much sooner, and have made adjustments to increase and improve our public participation efforts. Additionally, a national review team is assessed what additional measures the agency could do to strengthen public participation efforts on a national level. The final report and any additional information is available on our National site: http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/rfa/.

Northern Region Forest/Grassland RFA Contacts:

If you have specific questions, want to be put on a RFA mailing list for future notification, or wish to more actively participate, please feel free to contact the following Forest and Grasslands RFA contacts:

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What is RFA?

Recreation Facility Analysis (RFA) is an analysis process the Forest Service is using across the country to help national forests and grasslands create a sustainable program that matches up the developed recreation sites and experiences they offer with visitors’ desires and use.

RFA helps ensure that developed recreation sites make sense, considering the special features and characteristics that a forest or grassland has to offer. As a result of this analysis, and with the public providing feedback along the way, each forest and grassland will be able to focus their investments of time, dollars and resources to be as responsive as possible to visitors’ needs.

RFA is driven by three strategic goals:
1.  Provide recreation opportunities best suited for the national forest/grassland;
2.  Operate and maintain recreation sites to meet national quality standards;
3.  Eliminate/reduce recreation site deferred maintenance.

A seven step process is used to evaluate and prioritize sites for action. The results are contained in a proposed 5-year program of work, with public feedback being sought to ensure that these actions are sound and responsive to visitor needs.

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Steps in the Analysis Process

The RFA analysis process involves seven steps, each bringing a forest's or grassland's developed recreation sites in closer alignment with the forest or grasslands unique characteristics, projected recreation demand, visitor expectations and revenue. The following describes the steps involved. All 13 National Forest and Grassland units in the Northern Region have been engaged in RFA to see where they are in this process, see the links below.

Public involvement is an important aspect of the Recreation Facility Analysis process. Steps of the process include:

• Recreation site data preparation. Forests look at existing data for each site to ensure it is adequate for analysis. This step may require gathering more data.
• Examination of trends in outdoor recreation (by the public in general and on each national forest specifically) along with the settings, special places, and opportunities a forest offers.
• A preliminary analysis of how well a national forests's existing recreation sites meet public needs considering recreation trend analyses, community importance, and current program constraints (i.e. budget, time constraints, personnel, etc.)
• Based on this initial analysis, the resulting proposed 5-year program of work is shared, reviewed, and discussed with the public.
• Adjustments and changes are made to the proposed program of work as a result of public participation to produce a 5-year program of work for the recreation sites program for each national forest.
• The program of work is reviewed annually, and revised as needed.

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Where are we now?

In the Northern Region, the 13 Forests and Grasslands are all in the process of completing the RFA analysis. Since some forests started in 2006, units are at different stages of completion.

More information and documents available for review can be found at:

Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/b-d/recreation/index-rfa.shtml

Bitterroot NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/bitterroot/recreation/

Clearwater NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/clearwater/Projects/rsfmp/rsfmp.htm

Custer NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/custer/

Dakota Prairie GL website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/dakotaprairie/

Flathead NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/flathead/

Gallatin NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/gallatin/

Helena NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/helena/

Idaho Panhandle NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/ipnf/

Kootenai NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/kootenai/

Lewis and Clark NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lewisclark/ ( Info. available April 2007)

Lolo NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lolo/

Nez Perce NF website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/nezperce/recreation/index-rsfmp.shtml

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USDA Forest Service - Northern Region
Last Modified: Monday, 12 May 2008 at 15:15:37 EDT