The Bureau of Land Management's outdoor recreation mission is to sustain healthy land and water resources while providing quality visitor services. The BLM provides resource-dependent recreational opportunities in a variety of settings that typify the vast western landscapes of the 11 public land states. BLM emphasizes visitors' freedom to pursue unstructured recreation opportunities as long as the visitor accepts the responsibility to use public lands wisely and to respect other visitors and local residents.
Visitors participate in a variety of activities on public lands.
Most individuals, groups, and families participate in more than one activity per visit. Visitor use information described by major groupings of these activities is found in Table 4-1. The BLM stresses the use of education and interpretation to encourage visitors' knowledge, appreciation, and safe enjoyment of public land resources. In addition, the BLM is also working with other agencies and partner organizations to improve accessibility to public lands and recreation facilities for all visitors, including people with disabilities and public land visitors from diverse cultural backgrounds. Recreation and leisure opportunities and the resources they are derived from play a critical role in the growing local community and national tourism economies.