Who Recreates Where: Implications from a National Recreation Household Survey

Given the growing US population and its relatively stable supply of publicly owned forests, it seems likely that future demand for outdoor recreation will be increasingly satisfied by privately owned forests. Therefore, it becomes important to understand whether visitors to publicly and privately owned forests have different characteristics. Using data from a US household survey, we found that college graduates and water-based consumptive recreationists (e.g., fishermen) were more likely to recreate on publicly owned forests and females and land-based consumptive recreationists (e.g., hunters) were more likely to recreate on privately owned forests. Our findings also suggested that elderly people and ethnic minorities appeared to be underutilizing public recreation lands in the United States.