Reply to Jacobs and Manfredo: More support for a pervasive decline in nature-based recreation

Jacobs and Manfredo (1) assert that (i) some forms of nature recreation are increasing, giving wildlife viewing as example; (ii) U.S. environmentalism has remained positive in a narrow range since the 1980s; (iii) we must measure all forms of outdoor participation within the individual to be able to gauge trends; and (iv) the correspondence between outdoor recreation and biodiversity support is likely low. We feel that these assertions are not well supported. We evaluated 16 long-term trends in nature recreation using all measures for which we found data that met our requirements: collected annually, beginning in 1987 [the peak in U.S. National Park visitation (2 …