Magnolia Springs State Park, pictured here, is among many sites in Georgia providing opportunities for outdoor recreation. As part of its effort to better serve Georgia residents and visitors, the Parks and Recreation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has asked the Fanning Institute to assist in developing a Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP).

As part of the SCORP effort, the Fanning Institute is facilitating public input sessions around the state to find out

• why outdoor recreation is important;
• what is lacking or needs improvement; and
• what needs to be done to improve it.

In addition to holding public meetings, the Fanning Institute is collecting the same information through an online form and has created an email announcements list. Other UGA units involved in SCORP include the Natural Resources Spatial Analysis Laboratory at the Institute of Ecology, which is building a database of all parks in the state, and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, which conducted a random telephone poll of Georgia citizens to find out how they use outdoor recreation.

Recent public meetings were held in Tallulah Falls on Nov. 30 and in Rome on Dec. 7. For more information, see the SCORP page on the DNR web site.