This law authorized the Secretary of the Interior to exchange, sell, or lease unreserved non-mineral public lands to the states and their political subdivisions for recreational development. The act permitted states, counties, and municipalities to acquire land for recreational purposes at low cost. Its dominating growth factor is economic pressure rather than coordinated planning and development by the departments of the Government. But it is an inescapable fact that recreation as a public use of Federal lands cannot be turned aside. Almost a quarter of our population is turning today to public reservations for outdoor recreation.
Federal land is their property.
They demand participation in its use to satisfy their recreational wants, and their demands must be met. Sooner or later the Federal Government, as an obligation of its stewardship, must plan and provide in a forward looking way for a clearly defined adjustment of recreation to the other uses of these public reservations. It is then the great responsibility of the Federal Government to provide those forms of outdoor life and recreation which it alone can give and which are associated only with the wilderness. Land planning or the dedication and classification of the land and its resources to highest service is the fundamental basis upon which the development of outdoor recreation as a national institution must rest. Upon the Federal Government, as an obligation of its stewardship, is imposed the duty to plan and provide in a forward looking way for the complete development of the economic and social resources of its vast estate.