FW: OVETS presentation

["Bob Morris" <bobmorris@rmci.net>]

Comments on this wouold be appreciated.

Bob Morris  (bobmorris@rmci.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Clark Collins [mailto:73563.1551@compuserve.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 3:58 PM
To: Adda Quinn; Alan Hill; Betsy Gilman; Bob Morris; Bonnie Salbach; Bay
State Trailriders; Mylon Filkins; Cindy Collins; Denise Farris; Duncan
Fletcher; Toby & Katie Horst; The Equiery; Greg Jones; Gene Wood; Jan
Hancock; Jack Bailey; James Furlong; Joe Arterburn; Jim McGarvie; Loren
McGovern; Peg E. Greiwe; Madelyn Kempf; Robert and Kathleen; Steve
Ralls; Kandee Haertel; Arlene G Walsh; Jim Murphy; Bill Kaeppner
Subject: OVETS presentation


The following is the presentation I will be presenting at this equestrian
symposium on Sunday, February 13 in Louisville Kentucky.                   
         
                          
                               
                                
                                
                                
            OHIO VALLEY EQUESTRIAN TRAILS SYMPOSIUM
                        presentation by
                        Clark L. Collins
            BlueRibbon Coalition Executive Director

     The BlueRibbon Coalition represents primarily motorized recreation
interests, but we have 
many equestrian members as well as having an equestrian on our Board. We
have a long history of
working with horseback riders on shared-use trails.

     Our local trailmachine club and I helped put on a horse endurance
event in the 80s. We
marked the trails, rode clean-up and generally supplied most of the
volunteer support for the event.
The 50 mile course was on local USFS trails that we help maintain and we
got a lot of satisfaction
from sharing these trails with the competitors. 

     We've maintained contact with some of these American Endurance Riders
Conference
(AERC) friends over the years and some are now members of the BlueRibbon
Coalition. We've
supported equestrian access and published articles in BlueRibbon Magazine
that illustrate
equestrian trail users willingness to work with us on issues of common
concern.

     An equestrian media article, "The Way I See It" by Genie Stewart
Spears, was published in
the June 1993 WESTERN HORSEMEN. Spears maintains that discrimination
against other trail
users is something that horsemen can no longer afford. She says, "More and
more trails are being
closed to horses, bicyclist, and off road vehicles while complacent
recreational land users think
that somebody else is taking care of the problems. And, worse yet, whenever
these users do take
action, they frequently seem to be pitted against one another......
Sometimes particular user
groups are successful in eliminating others; however they frequently find
themselves the next to
be excluded."

     The trails community is being drawn together naturally by a shared
love of the
backcountry. Now those with an "anti everyone but themselves" attitude are
isolating themselves
from the mainstream. They are also "forcing" supporters of balanced shared
use to work even
closer together. Spears summarized the main point of her article. "Before
all is lost, recreational
trail users must put differences aside and unite to preserve our trails."

     The BlueRibbon Coalition also believes we must unite. However,  a
major impediment to
user cooperation on shared use trails is the ongoing Wilderness debate. We
do not support new
Wilderness designations for several reasons. It discriminates against our
form of  trail recreation
and precludes management options for proper resource care and protection.
Because of these
views, Wilderness advocates accuse us of being anti-environmentalists and
poor stewards of the
land. The allegations are not reasonable and they are not true.

     The problem is that some green advocacy groups want all our scenic
areas locked up in
Wilderness. They deliberately downplay the fact that most forms of
recreation are not allowed inWilderness. Mountain bikes not allowed!
Motorcycles and ATV's not allowed! Snowmobiles
not allowed! 4X4s not allowed! Even those forms of  recreation that are
allowed are often severely
restricted. Wilderness purists attempt to kick outfitters and guides,
horseback riders, and even
large groups of hikers out of areas after they are designated Wilderness.

BACK-COUNTRY RECREATION AREA DESIGNATION,
A reasonable alternative to wilderness
 
     Many U.S. citizens do not trust our federal land managers to manage
our natural resources
responsibly. Wilderness advocates have taken advantage of this situation to
promote Wilderness
designation as the only way to protect these areas. Wilderness designation
was originally
conceived, by the Wilderness advocates involved in the passage of the 1964
Wilderness Act, as
appropriate for about ten million acres of administratively designated
Wilderness and Primitive
Areas. Present day Wilderness advocates have since "corrupted" the concept
to a system of over
one hundred million acres, and they say we need much more. 
 
     An alternative land designation should be considered to help resolve
the Wilderness debate on
our federal lands. While these lands are located primarily in the West,
there is also an effort by
Congress and the Clinton Administration to purchase large green belts in
the Eastern United States
where there is little federal land. Without an alternative, these green
belts will mostly likely also be
set aside as defacto wilderness areas. 
 
WHO WOULD BE AFFECTED: Off highway motorcycles, snowmobiles, 4X4s, mountain
bikes,  ATVs, and personal watercraft are not allowed in designated
Wilderness. Motorized uses
that have been grand fathered into some Wilderness areas, such as use of
aircraft and powerboats,
are subjected to harassment. Horseback riders, hunters and other
non-motorized recreationists are
also increasingly under attack from Wilderness advocates who push more
restrictive regulations in
existing Wilderness areas and those areas proposed for that designation. 
 
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE: The U.S. Congress should consider legislation
establishing a
federal designation that is less restrictive to recreational use than
Wilderness. We propose it
should be called "Back Country Recreation Area." This designation should be
designed to protect
and if possible enhance the back country recreation opportunities on these
lands while still
allowing responsible utilization of these areas by the natural resource
industries.
 
WHERE: This designation should be considered for those areas currently
identified by the federal
land management agencies as "roadless" and thus currently under
consideration for Wilderness
designation. Areas considered  may or may not be recommended for Wilderness
designation or
classed as Wilderness Study Areas. Also, the Forest Service (FS) and Bureau
of Land Management
(BLM) have administratively developed non-Congressionally designated
wilderness-like reserves
or buffer zones. The Forest Service's buffers are called natural and
near-natural areas.  The BLM's
reserves are named primitive and semi-primitive. These non-Congressionally
approved land
classifications could also be considered for Back Country Recreation Area
(BCRA) designation.  
 
WHEN: All "roadless" federal lands, not currently designated as Wilderness,
should be reviewed
for their importance to back country recreationists and considered for
designation as BCRAs
within 20 years of the passage of this act.
 
WHY: Many roadless areas have been under consideration for Wilderness
designation for over 30
years. Much of the opposition to Wilderness designation in many of these
areas has been from
recreationists whose preferred form of recreation isn't allowed in
Wilderness areas. Recreational
resources need not be sacrificed for responsible resource use. We need a
designation that
encourages cooperation, not only between diverse recreation interests, but
between recreationists
and our resource industries. The BCRA can be that designation.

Contact for additional information on the Back Country Recreation Area
concept:
                                
                         Clark Collins
                      BlueRibbon Coalition
                       1540 North Arthur
                      Pocatello, ID 83204
              ph. (208)233-6570 fax (208)233-8906
 (e-mail) brclark@sharetrails.org (website) www.sharetrails.org
                                  
     Basically the Back Country Recreation Area designation would provide
for permanent
protection of the right to use the land for the existing types of multiple
use trail recreation. By
protecting the existing high quality of these areas recreationists can
continue to have some back
country areas set aside without the threat of future loss due to a new
"Wilderness" designation.

     Our goal is to develop a BCRA land classification proposal to the
point of obtaining
consensus support from both multiple-use recreation and the resource
industries. If we get a good
response from off-highway-recreationists, we are willing to take this
higher and see if we can get
legislative support to move forward. We hope equestrian trail users will
support this effort.