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Recreational Activities
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Heritage Expeditions |
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"I have been taking classes for 20 years and this is the best I have ever attended". "The effort to make this possible is outstanding, much more
than I could have imagined". -- Comments from past participants. |
2004 Expeditions Sign up early! |
In 1996, Congress passed
legislation authorizing the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. This
legislation allows federal agencies to test the collection and reinvestment of
new admission and user fees at selected demonstration areas through 2002.
Under this test, fees are retained at the sites at which they are collected
for the protection and enhancement of resources, rather than returned to the
National Treasury. This allows agencies to direct money where it is most
needed to take care of deteriorating facilities or resources at risk, and it
allows the public to insure their money is spent on programs and resources
they care about personally.
The USDA Forest Service is testing
Heritage Expeditions under this legislation. Heritage Expeditions are
educational tours and programs about historic and prehistoric sites on
national forests. Those sites chronicle this nation's past from ancient mound
builders to European settlers and they are disappearing through the ravages of
time. Future generations deserve the chance to see and understand them too.
The goal of Heritage Expeditions is to provide opportunities for the
public to learn about and help conserve non-renewable heritage resources, and
for fees from those experiences to fund protection and continued public access
to those sites. Fees collected on Heritage Expeditions will be used
to protect and manage heritage sites for the public. Your fees will buy
materials to restore historic structures for public use, support volunteer
programs like Passport In Time that are aimed at protection of heritage
resources, support American Indian interns learning historic preservation
skills, and preserve sites that are visited by hundreds of people every year.
Heritage Expeditions planned for
the future include a paleontological adventure to explore Titanotheres fossils
and 35 million year-old geological formations in Colorado, Horsemanship &
Packing clinics in Montana, stabilization of rock art in the Columbia River
Gorge in Oregon, and restoration of an historic cabin in the Gila Wilderness
in New Mexico.
All fees collected on Heritage Expeditions go toward protection of
non-renewable heritage resources and toward enhancement of those resources
so they will be accessible to the public and to future generations.
If you would like additional information about Heritage Expeditions, please call
208-373-4162
or
The list of opportunities offered in 2004 is now available! Sign up early!
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