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We used a national household survey to examine knowledge, attitudes, and preferences pertaining to wildland fire. First, we present nationwide results and trends. Then, we examine opinions across region and race. Despite some regional variation, respondents are fairly consistent in their beliefs about assuming personal responsibility for living in fire-prone areas and believing that residents of such areas should follow government guidelines for managing fire risk. However, we find divergence of opinion on "trusting forest professionals" between African-American and Caucasian people. Across all survey questions related to fire management and public confidence, African-Americans appear to be relatively more concerned than Caucasian or Hispanic people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on African American and Hispanic visits to federal recreation areas. According to the data on file with Donald English of the Visitor Use Monitoring Project based in Washington, D.C., African American visits account for very low percentages of visits to national forests across the U.S. On the other hand, Hispanic visits to national forests in the Southwest are high. It is posed that factors such as private landownership and social definitions of place may be integral in considering African American use of wildland public recreation regions in the Southern states in the U.S.

Collective memory can be used conceptually to examine African-American perceptions of wildlands and black interaction with such places. The middleAmerican view of wildlands frames these terrains as refuges—pure and simple, sanctified places distinct from the profanity of human modification. However, wild, primitive areas do not exist in the minds of all Americans as uncomplicated or uncontaminated places. Three labor-related institutions—forest labor, plantation agriculture, and sharecropping—and terrorism and lynching have impacted negatively on black perceptions of wildlands, producing an ambivalence toward such places among African Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess whether traditionally marginalized groups in American society (African-Americans, women, rural dwellers) perceive more constraints to outdoor recreation participation than other groups. A series of logistic regressions are applied to a national recreation survey and used to model the probability that individuals perceive certain constraints to participating in outdoor recreation activities. Twelve constraints related to health, facilities, socioeconomic standing, and other personal factors are examined for both participants and nonparticipants of outdoor recreation. We model the probability that individuals report being constrained in participating in their favorite activities as a function ofrace, gender, and rural residence. In addition, we control for income, age, regional differences, and activity groupings. Of the three groups examined, women are most likely to feel constrained--for instance, by personal safety concerns, inadequate facilities and information, insufficient funds, and outdoor pests. Race is not a significant predictor of constraints for participants, but nonparticipating African-Americans are more likely than whites to feel personal safety concerns inhibit their outdoor recreation opportunities. Rural residence does not appear to be an important factor among either participants or nonparticipants in explaining the probability that an individual feels constrained in outdoor recreation participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive Summary: We compare wildland activity choices for a sample of rural African Americans and Whites who visited wildland settings in and around the Apalachicola National Forest. We also look at intra-racial (same race, different gender) variations for activity participation. This research extends previous research focused on the visit/not visit wildland question by examining activity choice by race and gender for those who do visit. Our results show no racial differences for consumptive activities like fishing and hunting; however, African Americans are significantly less likely than Whites to participate in most forms of nonconsumptive activities like camping and hiking. Greater gender differences in activity participation were found for Whites than for African Americans. We discuss management implications and ways forest managers may attract more African Americans to participate in forest-based outdoor recreation. This includes target marketing strategies that promote fishing and group activities on the Apalachicola National Forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that African Americans have less favourable impressions about wildlands and recreate on wildland areas less frequently than do whites. However, most of these investigations have been conducted on non-rural populations. Rural perceptions of wildlands and visitation to such areas have received relatively little attention. In this exploratory study, we propose that race operated on wildland recreation visitation through the different meanings rural blacks and whites attribute visitation through the different meanings rural blacks and whites attribute to wildlands. We examine this hypothesis with a structural model which specifies wildland meaning as an intervening with a structural model which specifies wildland meaning as an intervening factors between race and visitation. Single equation results show blacks visit wildlands less, and have less favorable definitions of wildlands, compared to whites. However, when wildland meaning is included in the structural model, racial differences become insignificant. This suggests that the meanings different racial groups attach to wildlands help explain visitation. Both sex and age are also significant predictors of both wildland meaning and visitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]