As we shall see, wildland recreation management is not easy. As our society becomes more leisure-oriented, new challenges appear for recreation managers. They must understand and meet diverse, ever-changing public needs, providing opportunities for people to have satisfying recreation experiences. To provide these opportunities on a sustained basis, leisure professionals must manage wildlands so they retain the qualities that make people want to visit them and to protect the often-fragile environments they support. And managers must do this in concert with a complex mix of natural resource laws and regulations, often with cross-purposes.
Leisure is at the center of recreation and tourism.
It is only when we understand the nature, role, complexities, and status of leisure that we can begin to adequately address societies need for leisure services. People visit recreation settings we manage, participate in activities, and experience physical and psychological outcomes that, ideally, benefit not only themselves but also the people around them and society as a whole. Wildland recreation managers often work within complex bureaucratic agencies or organizations where conflicts abound. Management actions that you devise to please one group of recreation visitors are likely to infuriate another. As if that weren't enough, all this takes place in a rapidly changing society whose recreational tastes and preferences can be difficult to predict.