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: Many hiking trails traverse the forests and public lands across North America. It has therefore become important for federal management to gain an understanding of total use on these trails. However, there has never been a formal attempt to estimate hiking on these long, backcountry trails. This paper presents an approach that utilizes two survey instruments (exit-site tallies and a trail-user questionnaire) and two primary estimation components (standard and augmented sites) to estimate hikers over a spatial and temporal span. For illustrative purposes, the methodology is applied to a 175 km segment of the Appalachian Trail from 1 June through 14 August 2007. Two alternative estimation methodologies are presented and compared. The model-based approach may be preferred to the design-based approach when sample size is small because it smoothes erratic strata estimates and yields smaller standard errors. However, the design-based approach relaxes an assumption and is more appropriate as sample size increases. In our survey of the Appalachian Trail, there was a 5.6% difference between the visitation estimates based on these two approaches, and such stability reinforces confidence in the methodology. Resume: Plusieurs sentiers de randonnee pedestre traversent les forets et les terres publiques partout en Amerique du Nord. Il est par consequent devenu important pour la gestion federale d'acquerir une comprehension de l'utilisation totale de ces sentiers. Cependant, il n'y a jamais eu de tentative formelle pour estimer la randonnee pedestre dans ces longs sentiers d'ar-riere-pays. Cet article presente une approche qui utilise deux instruments de sondage (des releves de sortie du site et un questionnaire destine aux utilisateurs des sentiers) pour estimer les randonneurs pedestres sur un horizon temporel et spatial. A titre d'exemple, la methodologie a ete appliquee a un segment de 175 km du sentier des Appalaches du 1 juin au 14 aout 2007. Deux methodes alternatives d'estimation sont presentees et comparees. L'approche basee sur un modele peut etre preferable a l'approche basee sur un plan lorsque la taille de l'echantillon est petite parce qu'elle adoucit les estimations des strates irregulieres et produit de plus petits ecarts types. Cependant, l'approche basee sur un plan assouplit une hypothese et est plus appropriee a mesure que la taille de l'echantillon augmente. Dans notre enquete sur le sentier des Appalaches, il y avait un ecart de 5,6 % entre les estimations de frequentation basees sur les deux approches et une telle stabilite renforce la confiance dans la methodologie. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Outdoor recreation, in addition to timber, water, wildlife, and grazing, comprise the multiple-use concept of modern forest management. Outdoor recreation is very important across the North American continent as [...]

We use national-level data to test a modified version of Stern, Dietz, & Guagnano's causal model of environmental belief and behavior. We focus mainly on ethnic variation in environmental belief, as measured by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP), and ethnic variation for four environmental behaviors: environmental reading, household recycling, environmental group joining, and participation in nature-based outdoor recreation. Blacks and foreign-born Latinos were less likely than Whites to score higher on the NEE Any behavioral differences between Whites and the respective minority groups were expected to diminish with the inclusion of the NEP as an intervening variable in the model between ethnicity and behavior. However. ethnic differences remained stable and strong even when environmental belief was added. Overall, Asian American and U.S.-born Latino environmentalism was most similar to Whites. African American concern and behavior was least similar to White environmentalism. Gender, age, and liberal political orientation were also consistent explicators for both environmental concern and behavior. Keywords: environmentalism; ethnicity; New Ecological Paradigm

Five different environmental attitude scales were regressed on an 11-item self-reported general environmental behavior index derived from a confirmatory factor analysis. Correlations between each of the 5 attitude scales and the behavioral index were computed and a Fisher's Z-transformation was used to test for the effect of six respondent characteristics (gender, residence, education, income, age, and political orientation) on the attitude-behavior correlations. Although all of the five scales were significantly correlated with the behavioral index (p [is less than] .001), correlations for some attitude scales were highly affected by respondent characteristics. Of the 5 scales examined, the Environmental Concern (EC), New Environmental Paradigm (NEP), and Awareness of Consequences (AC) scales were associated most strongly with behavior, but the EC and NEP also were significantly affected by respondent characteristics. Implications for future studies and use of the scales are discussed., Since the late 1970s, several scales to assess public attitudes toward general environmental issues have been developed (e.g., Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Maloney, Ward, & Braucht, 1975; Roper Organization, [...]

Research on the social bases of environmentalism in the United States has generally found that urban residents are more concerned about the environment than rural residents. Recent research suggests this may no longer be the case, particularly in specific settings or under certain conditions. This paper examines the issue by reviewing recent survey research on rural and urban environmentalism. Tests for significant differences between urban and rural inhabitants of the Southern Appalachian Ecoregion on cognitive and behavioral dimensions of environmentalism are also conducted using data obtained from 1,239 telephone interviews. Findings are consistent with previous research showing that younger people, those with higher levels of education, and political liberals generally express higher levels of environmentalism. However, no significant rural-urban differences were found on several indicators of environmentalism. A range of conditions that are rapidly changing the character and composition of the region may help to explain why the findings do not conform to the general pattern of rural-urban differences. Overall, it appears that environmentalism has broadened its appeal in rural areas, especially in communities located near national and state parks, wildlife refuges, and other outdoor recreation sites.