OCR Text |
Show Internet Recreation Site Is Established For Public Usej Campers, hikers, anglers and anyone else who enjoys the outdoors out-doors can gather up-to-the-moment information on public lands nationwide na-tionwide through a new internet site.www.recreation.gov The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service has joined with then Interior Inte-rior Department's National Park Service, Fish And Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Mangagement, Bureau Bu-reau of Reclamation and the Department De-partment of Defense's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to improve customer service by establishing an internet web site that deals with recreational opportunities on federal lands. Agriculture Under Secretary Jim Lyons stated," Recreation is the fastest growing use of the national forests and the forests provide a wide range of outdoor recreation experiences - from camping and hiking, to river rafting and wilderness wilder-ness treks. By teaming up with our sister agencies, outdoor recreation-ists recreation-ists can now obtain information on recreation sites and opportunities across the entire federal landscape. This web site will increase the public's pub-lic's ability to learn about recreation recrea-tion on their public lands and improve im-prove the service we provide to the millions of Forest Service customers custom-ers who enjoy America's great outdoors. out-doors. Chief Mike Dombeck stated, "We want anyone to be able to learn about these lands and explore the possibilities of visiting these lands without having to go through the old government run-around. We want our public lands to realize their full potential as the world's premier recreation destination." The www.recreation.gov web site will provide users with a list of all federal recreation sites meeting the search criteria, as well as a list of the activities at each site. The web site will also provide access to more detailed information about individual recreation sites by link! ing to agency web pages. The in-teragency in-teragency web site, ' www.recreation.gov, is a result of the federal land management agencies agen-cies commitment to vice-president Al Gore in August 1997 to have it in place by the year 2000. This . commitment is almost two years ahead of schedule and offers one-stop one-stop shopping electronically for information about recreation on all lands. Future stages of, www.recreation.gov will include i links to agency campground reservation reser-vation systems, and may include-links include-links to other partners, such as stated parks, tourism offices, and local chambers of commerce. |