Forest Service announces proposed pilot projects to enhance recreation monitoring

News and Adventure from Glacier National Park

The Forest Service is publishing a Federal Register notice announcing an interagency effort to monitor recreation use by implementing pilot projects across public lands. This effort is geared towards improving recreation resource management, visitor services, and planning.

The purpose of these pilot protocols is to model recreation use patterns, including low-use and dispersed recreation activities, that may not be effectively measured by existing general and opportunistic survey and monitoring protocols. The Federal Register notice is available for public inspection today and will officially publish on Monday, initiating a 30-day public comment period on the proposed pilot projects. The notice will direct the public to BLM’s e-planning website for comment collection.

“Understanding visitor recreation use patterns is important for the Forest Service to gain a better understanding of the demand so we can improve visitor experiences,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. “These pilot projects will incorporate a variety of on-site techniques including activities such as manually counting visitors, summarizing trail permit data, installing mechanical counters, and providing logbooks for visitors to record their use.”

There will also be the incorporation of emerging data sources and technologies, such leveraging anonymized digital data generated by visitors to recreation sites to describe recreation-use patterns at those sites. This will include scanning social media to research photo and review sharing applications, understanding anonymized location-based services from smart phones, and incorporating remotely sensed data like aerial photography and satellite imagery to corroborate on-data pulled from recreation usage.

These pilot projects are one of the many ongoing actions identified in the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act, enacted January 4, 2026, and is specifically tied to section 133.

The Forest Service is proposing pilot projects alongside the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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