Leveraging Recreation for National Forest Conservation
The goal of this capstone project is to provide recommendations on behalf of Western Resource Advocates to the U.S. Forest Service to be utilized in the Forest Management Plan writing process. These recommendations will include arguments for utilizing outdoor recreation while taking into account the ecological needs of ecosystems and the societal and economic needs of nearby communities. The U.S. Forest Service writes new Forest Management Plans for National Forests approximately every fifteen years. While writing these plans, the staff takes into account recommendations and research provided by a diverse set of stakeholders. The planning process is open for input from any stakeholder. Not every recommendation has conservation goals, rather, some have aims of road development, oil and gas operations, or heavy duty commercial logging. This project will demonstrate how recreational communities can be partnered with and leveraged to drive further land, water, and air conservation.