Outdoor Alliance joined with Outdoor Industry Association to provide additional perspectives on Forest Planning. In our letter we commended the Forest Servcie for the open and transparent approach towards developing a new planning rule. Rather than following the traditional course of developing a proposed rule -- publishing it in the Federal Register and then passively awaiting input -- the Forest Service actively engaged the public at the earliest possible stage of development. Not only was the public able to comment and critique the very scoping of the planning rule, the Forest Service provided multiple opportunities to inform and guide the development of the rule through roundtable events across the nation this spring and summer. The most notable aspect to the entire process thus far is that the Forest Service shared its evolving insights on how to design the forest planning rule, and also reflected back a synthesized version of current public sentiment on the development process. All these parts taken together have enabled a very real (and maybe unprecedented) dialog on a matter of profound importance to the human-powered and active outdoor recreation communities. 

We reiterated our perspective that recreation is one of many uses of our national forests, but if managed and planned for wisely, it can be used to further various other goals, especially conservation and stewardship of these treasured lands and waters. Recreation facilitates a direct relationship with National Forests that is exceedingly important as our nation’s population continues to shift towards urban settings and recreation serves as a critical vector to making National Forests relevant to people that are no longer required to have significant interactions or relationships with the natural world.

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