Office of the Secretary

For Release: April 21, 1998

Contact:John Wright 202/208-6416

Federal agencies unveil a new recreation web page to help visitors

discover recreational opportunities on America’s public land

Remember the last vacation you took, only to return home to find out from your friends that you were within a few miles of another fascinating and adventure filled site. Now there is a new way for visitors and travelers to learn about the many recreational opportunities available to them on America’s public lands! Welcome to www.recreation.gov, one stop shopping for information about recreation activities on federal lands.

The recreation.gov initiative is part of Vice President Gore’s multi-agency effort to improve customer service by establishing an electronic information system that deals with recreational opportunities on federal lands. The Vice President announced the availability of the new web site today at a federal management conference in Washington, D.C.

The new site, (http://www.recreation.gov) announced today was created by a small team of federal land management agencies like the Interior Department’s National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Reclamation; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service; and the Department of Defense’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt noted that, “We’ll keep improving America’s recreational areas, and we’ll continue to build on new ways for the public to get the information needed to have an enjoyable experience as they visit our public lands and historic sites.”

The federal land management agencies made a commitment to Vice President Gore in August 1997, to have in place by the year 2000, an integrated nationwide outdoor recreation information system that would provide the public with quick and easy electronic access to information about recreational activities on federal lands, recreation use permits and reservations.

The inter-agency web site, recreation.gov, accomplishes this commitment almost two years ahead of schedule. It offers one-stop shopping electronically for information about recreation on all federal lands. The system was developed through a partnership approach that included the Interior Department’s U.S. Geological Survey, which provided map information through the National Digital Atlas program, and the Department of Commerce’s National Weather Service, which provided weather information.

The system is housed on a HP NetServer donated by Hewlett-Packard Company to the National Park Foundation. The gift from Hewlett-Packard is an excellent example of partnership and commitment to support innovative projects that use technology to benefit the public.

Each land management agency is responsible for maintaining and updating its own information on the database. Future stages of recreation.gov will include links to agency campground reservation systems, and may include links to other partners, such as state parks and tourism offices, and local chambers of commerce.

How to Use www. recreation.gov

Visitors and users of America’s public lands will find the recreation.gov web site very useful in their search for recreation sites by state, by agency, or my recreational activity. The system will provide users with a list of all federal recreation sites meeting the search criteria, as well as a list of the activities available at each site. The system will also provide access to more detailed information about individual recreation sites by linking to agency web pages.

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