Thinking and Acting Regionally: toward Better Decisions about Appropriate Conditions, Standards, and Restrictions on Recreation Use

ecreation managers make and act on decisions, often implicit, about the conditions, management approaches, and visitor experiences that are most appropriate for the individual recreation areas they administer. As demand for recreation, particularly in wilderness, backcountry, and wild river settings, has increased, such decisions have become more difficult, complex, and contentious. We believe that managers, while charged with deciding what is appropriate in the individual places they manage, need to make decisions that are also appropriate within a regional context. A fundamental objective of recreation management is to maximize the values and benefits that accrue to the public from a system of recreation areas (Wagar 1966). Consequently, managers need to make decisions that maximize the values and benefits that accrue from that system, not just the individual areas for which they are responsible.