Do additional designations of wilderness result in increases in recreationuse?

Designation of public lands as wilderness continues to be a contentious iss ue. With about 45 million acres designated as wilderness in the lower 48 st ares, the question of whether designation of additional wilderness would re sult in increased recreation use has been raised. We address this issue usi ng a fixed-effects regression model for wilderness use at national forests and national parks throughout the United States. We find the acreage variab le is statistically significant in predicting visitor use at both agencies land. It appears that additional designations of wilderness will provide re creation benefits.