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USFS Revises NF Visitors Estimate "It's definitely lower than we thought it would be," comments the Forest Service's Head of Recreation on the finding that the Agency's estimate of annual National Forest visitors was five times higher than a more statistically controlled estimate indicates. "But we're still serving a whole lot of people." A revised counting project reduced the widely publicized "one billion per year" estimate to 209 million, largely by eliminating from the total people who merely drive through a National Forest without stopping or recreating there; and counting only once people who may stop at several campgrounds during a single visit. The revised estimate eviscerates former Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck's assertion that the Agency is the leading federal provider of recreation; the Park Service was documented to draw 286 million in 2000. In terms of public policy, this revelation is unlikely to affect appropriations for the Agency significantly, although it may put a damper on its estimates of the amount of revenues it is likely to gather from visitor fees, at whatever time that program emerges from its pilot phase. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
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