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Show believe the Congress should require a full study and report on this matter from the National Park Service as a basis for assisting it in evaluating future park proposals. There is continuing controversy over the question of what conditions constitute qualification of an area for inclusion in the wilderness system. This is particularly true for national forest primitive areas that are being reviewed under the schedule established by the Wilderness Act for additions to the system. Disputes most frequently arise over whether "wildness" alone constitutes qualification, regardless of whether the area has other use potential, or whether some combination of "wildness" and "uniqueness" is the better measure of an area's worthiness to be given statutory protection as wilderness. We believe the latter is a better standard, subjective as the condition "unique" may be. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation should be required to develop and submit to Congress within 2 years standards for evaluating and investing in outdoor recreation development on public lands. We believe there is an urgent need to bring more reason and order to investment planning and subsequent budgeting for outdoor recreation development on public lands. There have been numerous attempts to develop consistent and rational approaches to analyzing alternative recreation investments. While these have not been wholly successful, we believe they provide a basis from which the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation can develop acceptable standards. We are concerned that standards be provided as soon as possible to replace the current concept of meeting "projected demands" for recreation developments. Since recreation on public lands has been treated as a "free good" in the past, the demand for it tends to expand indefinitely as long as more developments are provided. This is not a good basis for allocating scarce tax dollars to alternative uses of the public lands. Factors that should be considered in Federal recreation investments should include as a minimum: expected use rates, investment and administrative costs per unit of expected use, expected net impact on regional economies, the opportunity cost of other uses of the land that will be foregone, impacts on the environment and comparisons with alternative developments. Access Recommendation 86: Congress should authorize a program for acquiring and developing reasonable rights-of-way across private lands to provide a more extensive system of access for outdoor recreation and other uses of the public lands. Our studies show that about 90 percent of the land area and nearly all of the streams and lakes on public lands are, as a matter of policy, open or available to the public for outdoor recreation of one kind or another. Yet, in many instances, the public is not able to gain entry to large areas of the public land. This is caused in part by the lack of clearly visible identification of public land boundaries; in part by the physical remoteness of public lands from established roads and highways; and in part by the control of access and entry to public lands by private landowners. Where fences are located on Federal land, the public tends to assume that the lands are private if they are not otherwise marked. We urge the administering agencies to expand their recent efforts to identify the public lands, and we support larger appropriations for this purpose. All of the agencies have provided some access into at least the major units of their holdings. In many instances, however, there are great distances along the perimeters of large blocks of public lands where there is no method or means of entry. We believe that Congress should provide the legal authority and budgetary support for the acquisition of public rights-of-way across private lands. This would be followed by appropriate forms of construction or development to provide the physical means of using the rights-of-way. The construction of improved roads would not be necessary in all cases; the provision of foot trails or jeep roads may be sufficient in many circumstances. Some states have engaged in similar efforts to provide public access to land and water for hunting and fishing purposes in recent years. The mutuality of Federal and state interest in the field of outdoor recreation, and the importance of treating the private property rights involved with sensitivity, requires an effort that we believe can best be carried out cooperatively. The Congress should consider the possibility of leaving the actual acquisition of rights-of-way with the states. The Federal Government would then work closely in planning the route selection, participating in the financing of the cost of rights-of-way acquisition, and financing the necessary development of the access, once the rights-of-way have been obtained. Land administering agencies should have statutory authority to require that public land lessees and permittees grant reciprocal public right-of-way across private land under certain circumstances. The Commission has been advised that there have been instances where the owners of adjacent or intermingled lands hold privileges to use the public lands, but block public entry through control of the only existing access routes. 214 |