recreation. In addition, restaurants, sporting equip- 

 ment shops, motels, parking areas, and other 

 essentials and amenities are furnished by private 

 enterprise. Industry also develops new kinds of 

 recreational gear and equipment for recreational 

 use, and designs, engineers, and builds facilities on 

 public recreational lands. 



Private enterprise may also, through trade 

 associations, help provide statistical information 

 for both public and private planners, and through 

 advertising, help "sell" the marine environment as 

 a place for recreation. 



Important and complex questions that arise 

 include : 



—What are the relationships among the public and 

 private purveyors of coastal recreation and are 

 they such that they complement one another? 



—What can the pubUc sector do to stimulate the 

 private sector to meet unsatisfied demands? 



—How can quality, such as harmony and aesthe- 

 tics, be uniformly maintained in the private 

 section? 



The panel has no special information or expertise 

 to enable it to make recommendations on these 

 problems other than to state that they deserve 

 continuing study and consideration at all levels of 

 goverrmient. The ORRRC gave considerable atten- 

 tion to this subject and made a number of 

 recommendations, some of which have been imple- 

 mented. 



VI. ROLE OF FEDERAL, STATE. AND LOCAL 

 GOVERNMENTS AND PRIVATE SECTOR 



Federal, State, and local governments each play 

 several roles in outdoor recreation; they may do 

 research, plan, finance, acquire, develop, manage, 

 and regulate. Often these roles are intermingled 

 horizontally and vertically in one place, and the 

 whole state of affairs is confused. 



The present lack of any clear understanding as 

 to what can and should be expected of each of the 

 several levels of government in acquiring and 

 developing recreational lands frustrates rational 

 planning, creates unnecessary delays in making 

 decisions, and is Ukely to result in misallocation of 

 land purchase resources. The lack of clarity as to 



the scope of public and private roles is also a 

 source of friction and delay. 



Recognizing these difficulties the Recreation 

 Advisory Council and its successor Council on 

 Recreation and Natural Beauty have sought to 

 develop policy guidelines to define more clearly 

 the intended scope of Federal, State, and private 

 action. These guidelines have not, however, been 

 sufficiently definitive to improve the situation. 

 Thus, rather than relying on generally appUcable 

 criteria the Federal Government has on an ad hoc 

 basis had to identify those projects which ap- 

 peared to have the highest priority for Federal 

 support within the authorized level of expenditure 

 from appropriations and from the Land and Water 

 Conservation Fund. The portion of this fund 

 allocated to Federal acquisitions versus grants in 

 aid to States for acquisition and development also 

 has been a matter for annual negotiation (a 60-40 

 to 55-45 spHt has resulted). 



Currently the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation is 

 assisting the Council on Recreation and Natural 

 Beauty in developing a National recreation plan. 

 The panel does not know the specificity with 

 which the plan developed will address the problem 

 of establishing criteria to define Federal, State, 

 and local government and private roles. Although 

 it is not possible to advance a firm proposal in an 

 area that has for so many years eluded those most 

 immediately involved, it should be emphasized 

 strongly that many of the difficulties in meeting 

 marine recreation needs are a result of present 

 ambiguities in the roles of various governmental 

 levels and in private industry. Firmer guidelines are 

 needed to avoid confusion that leads to inaction. 



It seems apparent that new governmental ar- 

 rangements wiU be needed, especially to provide 

 for the recreation need of our sprawling metropoli- 

 tan areas and in general to provide for proper 

 allocation of coastal lands. The multiple use 

 concept must be applied as consistently as possible 

 so that no single use or group of uses of the coastal 

 zone's resources are allowed to exclude other uses. 

 To accomplish this it appears that a mechanism 

 must be estabUshed between Federal, State, and 

 local governments for the determination of coastal 

 zone shoreline use. The recommendation of 

 ORRRC that the States should occupy the pivotal 

 role in planning and providing for public recrea- 

 tion opportunities not adequately provided by 

 private action is endorsed. 



vli-248 



