Visitor Reactions To The Recreational Fee Demonstration Program

Congress authorized the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program to help federal land management agencies provide high-quality recreational opportunities to visitors and protect resources. The program focuses on recreational activities at the following four land management agencies: the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Forest Service. Under the fee demonstration program, participating agencies can collect fees at several sites and use them to (1) enhance visitor services, (2) address a backlog of needs for repair and maintenance, and (3) manage and protect resources. The agencies applied "entrance fees" for basic admission to an area and "user fees" for specific activities such as camping or launching a boat. Under the law, 80 percent of program revenue must be used at the site where it was collected. The rest may be distributed to other sites that may or may not be participating in the demonstration program. Some of the sites GAO surveyed experimented with innovative fee designs and collection methods, such as reducing fees during off-peak seasons and allowing visitors to use credit cards, but room for additional innovation exists, particularly in the areas of fee collection and coordination. The agencies also need to make improvement in three program management areas: evaluating their managers' performance in administering the fee program, developing information on which fee-collection and coordination practices work best, and resolving interagency management issues.

Themes include : Crossing conceptual, cultural and political boundaries -- ideas of community, place and landscape ; working in new temporal and spatial scales ; resource management and environmental justice ; bioregional, deep ecological and ecofeminist perspectives on natural resources ; cultural definitions of resources, co-management between state, provincial, federal/national governments and aboriginal/native peoples [First Nations] ; involvement of ethnic and racial minorities in policy making ; fisheries, parks, protected areas, in transboundary areas ; public-private sector collaboration, etc.

A compilation of abstracts of papers presented at the 8th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, held June 17-22, 2000. The abstracts explore the social dimensions of managing spatial landscapes for various purposes. The theme of the symposium, "Transcending Boundaries: Natural Resource Management form Summit to Sea," provided participants with the opportunity to explore the challenges of working across conceptual, cultural, and physical boundaries. The symposium focused on how social science research is being brought to bear on the exploration of "boundary issues" in resource management.