Abstract:
Recreation opportunity planning, including use of the recreation
opportunity spectrum (ROS), was developed to aid land managers in
inventorying, classifying, and managing outdoor recreation resources
within an overall planning framework. This planning concept, which
combines physical, managerial, and social setting characteristics
into an array of recreation opportunities ranging from primitive to
modern urban, has been adopted by both the Forest Service and Bureau
of Land Management as part of their integrated resource planning
process.
The objectives of this research were to identify appropriate
standards for two of the ROS criteria used in classifying settings,
remoteness from the sights and sounds of man and level of man-caused
resource modification, and to examine differences in perceptions of
these standards between recreationists local to the study area and
nonlocal visitors. The study area, characteristic of semi-arid landscapes,
was selected to compare user perceptions of appropriate standards with existing standards which were developed for us in
forested landscapes. Eighty-one users of the Steens Mountain Recreation
Area in southeastern Oregon participated in in-home interviews
during the summer of 1981.
Results of this study suggest that major changes in ROS standards
currently used to classify settings based on remoteness and resource
modification are not needed. Users' descriptions of the remoteness
of Steens Mountain settings and perceived distance from the sights
and sounds of man necessary for opportunities for remoteness generally
fell within guidelines presently being used, particularly when viewed
within the context of the location and topography of the area. Local
and nonlocal users differed in their choice and description of the
remoteness of their settings, though they were fairly consistent in
perceptions of distances and remoteness of specified settings. It is
recommended that current remoteness standards could even be relaxed
somewhat, depending on the landscape being analyzed.
Findings suggest that acceptability of resource modification in
recreation settings could also be influenced by history and location
of these semi-arid areas. Natural-appearing, nonpermanent modifications
such as livestock grazing, abandoned buildings, and watering ponds,
common occurrences in western semi-arid landscapes, detracted less than
permanent, obvious man-made structures such as powerlines and lived-in
cabins. It is suggested that when classifying lands based on this
criterion that modifications be grouped into these two categories.
Local users were more tolerant of all types of modification than nonlocal
users, particularly recreation-related modifications such as
campgrounds and roads.
