DEVELOPING A RECREATION AND AESTHETIC INVENTORY FRAMEWORK FOR FOREST PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

Shifts in policy toward landscape-scale land management require that m anagers understand the role of natural areas within those areas' socia l contexts. Recreational use and aesthetic benefits are part of this s ocial context. Natural areas managers, thus, are challenged to underst and existing recreation management strategies in relation to the socia l niche of their natural areas. Many challenges to landscape managemen t derive from insufficient information for decision making. This paper introduces a conceptual framework that identifies three types of info rmation needed to better understand the role of a natural area in its regional context: information on recreational opportunities, visual at tractiveness, and recreational use intensity. Sources of this informat ion are identified and an application of the framework is presented.