Ethnic Use of the Tonto: Geographic Expansion of the Recreation Knowledge Base1

The recreational use of the Tonto National Forest, Ari­ zona was investigated by using data on ethnic and racial subgroups. The Tonto is a Class 1 urban proximate forest adjoining the large, culturally diverse population of the Phoenix. An on-site survey of 524 recreating groups found sufficiently large numbers of Anglos (n=425) and Hispanics (n=82) who participated in our study. Analyses indicated Anglos sought more equipment-oriented experiences, while Hispanics sought experiences centered around basic site services and facilities. The marginality hypothesis and ethnic assimilation perspectives suggested a causal basis for ob­ served differences. Despite differences, the two groups were quite similar on many other characteristics. Management and research implications are discussed. Urban-proximate lands, including National Forests, present among the most profound challenges in resource management (Bradley 1984). A special challenge to recreation managers arises from huge and growing numbers of users bringing myriad expectations, desires, and behaviors with them to the forest (Ewert 1991). In this urban-forest environment, “the” visitor can appear to the manager as a distorted, composite reflection of the complex, culturally diverse, urban populations from which he/she comes. One way to comprehend this complexity is to analytically decompose use by assessing the attributes of ethnic and racial sub-groups of forest recreation users. Considerable research of this kind has been done in southern California (Baas and others 1993, Carr and Williams 1993, Chavez 1993, Chavez and others 1993, Chavez 1992), but much less is known about recreational diversity on urban forests elsewhere (with the exception of a study of Phoenix area households by Floyd and others [1990]). In an effort to extend the generalizability of ethnic recreation research, the geographic information base on ethnic use was expanded to describe ethnic and racial minority use on the Tonto National Forest, Arizona. The Tonto is a USDA Forest Service Category 1 urban proximate forest located within 50 miles of 2 million people in the Phoenix metropolitan area. About 30 percent of the Phoenix population is non-white, comprised of about 300,000 Hispanics, 100,000 AfricanAmericans, 29,000 Native Americans, and 180,000 other 1 An abreviated version of this paper was presented at the Second Symposium on Social Aspects and Recreation Research, February 23-25, 1994, San Diego, California. Assistant Professor and Director, Recreation and Leisure Services Program, and Assistant Professor, respectively, School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Box 15018, Flagstaff, AZ 86011. non-whites (US Bureau of Census 1991). The Phoenix population’s influence upon the Forest is most profound especially in its southern half, while the northern part of the Forest is perhaps more influenced by local residents of small towns and other rural areas. Prior to the study’s inception, Forest managers had little quantitative information about recreational use by racial and ethnic sub-populations. Moreover, knowledge was limited regarding recreational use of the Tonto as a whole, and of specific areas throughout the Forest. This dearth of information left managers to largely speculate about the recreation opportunities desired by their diverse clientele. Thus, research was conducted to address the goal of providing Tonto’s resource managers with information on forest-wide recreation use, and on the recreation activities and preferences of ethnic minority users. A second goal was to expand existing knowledge about ethnic forest users to forest environments in geographic areas outside California. These goals were addressed by the following research objective: To determine the kind, extent, and location of summer recreation use on the Tonto through an on-site survey des-cribing the behavior, preferences, and socialdemographic characteristics of the forest user population, including racial and ethnic subpopulations of forest recreationists.