Forestry and Natural Resources
Unit 17: Forest Management for Multiple and Sustainable Uses
Unit 17: Forest Management for Multiple and Sustainable Uses
Lesson 3: Outdoor Recreation and Wilderness Management
Duration: 4 Hours
Students will be able to:
1. Discuss the different federal, state, local and private recreational lands and the agencies that
maintain them.
2. Discuss strategies for managing recreational lands.
3. Define wilderness area.
4. Discuss strategies for managing wilderness lands.
Suggested Activities:
17.3A Recreational Management: Students draft a management document for a local recreation
area.
17.3B Land Use Debate: Using a fictitious tract of land, debate the merits of converting that
land into a wilderness area (ideas to remember: economic, social, cultural, political
factors, wildlife and water quality)
17.3C Land Utilization: Students survey the local area and develop a land use plan using
several resources such as soil surveys and geological maps. The plan should include
designation of agricultural areas, residential areas, and recreational areas. Students
present their plans in oral and written formats incorporating a map of the area and a list of
jobs created by implementation of the plan.
Teaching Outline
I. Outdoor recreation lands (see Unit 19, Rural Recreation for additional background
information).
A. Federal Lands
1. Close to 700 million acres are held by the federal government as national parks,
forests, and seashores.
2. Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, 90% of these lands are located in the western U.S.
B. State Lands
1. Approximately 50 million acres are held by state entities as state parks, reserves,
forests, and beaches.
2. All 50 states have state parks systems and most have state forest departments as well.
3. In addition to state parks and forests, many states manage fish and wildlife areas, as
well as natural areas and preserves.
C. Local Public Land
1. County and city parks and forests account for more than 60% of the nation’s public
land.
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Forestry and Natural Resources
Unit 17: Forest Management for Multiple and Sustainable Uses
2. Local recreation areas include city and county parks, playfields, nature preserves in
urban areas, greenbelts, and pocket parks.
D. Private Lands
1. Private land resources vary in operation and scale from large timber holdings to small
campgrounds.
2. Hunting and fishing (stocked and natural) on private land is very popular in some
states.
II. Managing agencies
A Federal
1. United States Forest Service
2. National Parks Service
3. United States Fish and Wildlife Service
4. Bureau of Land Management
5. United States Army Corp of Engineers
6. Bureau of Reclamation
B. State
1. State parks systems (California State Parks)
2. State forestry department (California Department of Forestry)
3. State fish and wildlife departments (California Department of Fish and Game)
C. Local
1. City parks
2. County parks
3. Municipal forests
D. Private
1. Private forest land owners
2. Private enterprise (campgrounds, hunting clubs, fish ponds, etc.)
III. Managing land for recreational use (modified from Introduction to Forests and Renewable
Resources)
A. Quality (of the visit, site, facilities, staff, etc.) should be the number one goal of all
management strategies.
B. Diversity of opportunities is also important (especially when dealing with changing
public desires).
C. Change must be managed to protect the natural system.
D. Each recreation area should have a clear and measurable objective for management; target
activities, recreational opportunities, and sensitive sites need to be considered when
formulating these objectives.
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Unit 17: Forest Management for Multiple and Sustainable Uses
E. Predicting demand is essential to maintaining a healthy public area; over-use can occur if
demand is not kept in check.
F. Monitor the site for impact and try to minimize it whenever possible by educating the
public about sensitive areas, teaching them to “leave no trace” when hiking and camping,
providing waste bins and facilities, and maintaining trails.
IV. Wilderness: background
A. 1964 Wilderness Act: established the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS);
land within these areas are protected because of their exceptional value to wilderness;
human activity is restricted (to low impact activities) in these areas.
B. Over 100 subsequent acts of legislation have added land to the NWPS.
C. Four agencies govern land in the NWPS: United States Forest Service, The National Park
Service, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land
Management.
D. Alaska has almost 2/3 of the nation’s wilderness areas; the majority of the rest is in 11
Western states; less than 5% of the nation’s wilderness is east of the Mississippi.
E. A handful of states have state-owned wilderness areas set aside.
V. Principle of wilderness management (modified from Introduction to Forests and Renewable
Resources).
A. Maintain wilderness areas to “keep wilderness wild” (1964 Wilderness Act); keep areas
roadless and unmechanized.
B. Manage areas to avoid degradation of popular areas; the goal is to equal or surpass
existing environmental conditions and to always restore damaged/impacted areas.
C. View management from a holistic (ecosystem) perspective; wilderness cannot and should
not be separated from its parts.
D. Favor wilderness-dependent activities; non-wilderness activities (these that do not require
solitude and isolation) should be limited to other recreation areas.
E. Use a minimum of regulations to obtain these principles; the “minimum tool rule” means
to do only what’s necessary to meet these objectives and to use the least impacting
method to get the job done.
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