Land Management Agencies

About 30 percent of the nation's land is controlled by the federal government, most of it by six agencies: the Forest Service, the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. GAO identified specific land management activities carried out by units in all these agencies and found that units have few activities in common. The 31 land management activities undertaken by the units cover a wide range and include timber sales, wildlife habitat management, maintenance, and hazardous materials management. The three major activities that are common across agencies are visitor services, maintenance, and construction. GAO also found that land management activities have shifted in emphasis. For example, recreation has increased, while consumptive uses, like mining and logging, have decreased in some units. From 1990 to 1995, recreational use of public land, including fishing, hiking, and camping, increased about 17 percent.

GAO noted that: (1) GAO identified 31 different activities performed by the agency units it examined in support of their various missions; (2) these activities include cultural resource management, habitat conservation, natural resource management, rangeland management, and other activities; (3) little commonality exists among the major activities performed, those on which these units spent most of their resources; (4) visitor services, maintenance, and construction were the major activities that showed the most commonality in that they were performed at units of three or more of the six agencies; (5) providing visitor services is a primary mission in some agencies and a secondary mission in others, whereas maintenance and construction are integral activities for most units; (6) the units spent most of their resources (except for construction and maintenance expenditures) on activities related to their specific missions; (7) overall, the legislatively established missions of these agencies have not changed; (8) however, there has been a shift in the activities that are emphasized and in the way that activities are managed; (9) for example, from 1990 through 1995, recreational use of federal lands increased by almost 245 million visits for the six agencies and about 4.5 million visits for the 14 units GAO visited; (10) in contrast, consumptive uses, such as mining, grazing, and timber production, have decreased at some units for a variety of reasons; (11) for example, since the market for uranium has substantially declined, uranium mining at Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management units has also decreased; (12) the total fiscal year 1995 costs to carry out the agencies' activities and the revenues generated at the 14 units GAO reviewed varied widely; (13) total costs ranged from $225,000 for a Bureau of Reclamation unit to almost $18 million at a Forest Service unit; (14) similarly, revenues ranged from zero at a Reclamation unit to nearly $800,000 at a Forest Service unit; and (15) however, the costs do not provide a basis for comparison because the agencies' budget and accounting systems are designed differently and units' uses and sizes vary greatly.