Forest Service tweaks survey to count tree-huggers more accurately
Published Date: 3/3/2025
Notice
Summary
The Forest Service is updating its National Visitor Use Monitoring survey to better count and understand visitors to national forests. This helps manage and improve forest recreation for everyone who loves the outdoors. If you have thoughts, you can share them by April 2, 2025, so the survey stays useful and easy to complete.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 3 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Small-Business Timber Set-Aside Appeals
Under the Small Business Timber Set-Aside Program the Forest Service must re-compute set-aside shares every five years or when purchaser circumstances change, and collect written appeal information (including email attachments) from small businesses. This information collection lists 20 business respondents with total burden hours of 200 and will be used to decide recomputation of timber sale shares.
National Forest Visitor Survey Update
The Forest Service is revising the National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) survey to better count and understand visitors to the National Forest System. The collection will involve 45,000 respondents, has total burden hours of 5,870, and is collected on a quarterly and annual basis; comments on the collection are due April 2, 2025.
Non-Timber Forest Products Surveys
The Forest Service will conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups about non-timber forest products (plants, mushrooms, nuts, sap, etc.) to collect information from foragers and natural resource managers. The collection lists 1,560 respondents, is a one-time collection, has total burden hours of 828, and will be used to inform management, planning, and technical advice.
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