This is in the news today.
forest land issue


Posted on Mon, Feb. 09, 2004
Forest Service plans to limit ATV use nationwide
ENVIRONMENT: The U.S. Forest Service chief proposes banning cross-country ATV travel.
BY JOHN MYERS
Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune


The battle has raged at the Minnesota Capitol, in the St. Louis County board room and Duluth City Hall: Where should the rapidly growing number of ATVs be allowed to drive?

Now, the U.S. Forest Service is in the fray.

Bush administration Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has laid out a vision that will ban cross-country travel in all national forests while asking each forest to develop a system of limited, designated trails and road routes for ATVs.

That the issue needs attention isn't challenged. In Minnesota, ATV registrations have skyrocketed from about 140,000 to more than 205,000 in the past two years.

But complaints about ATV conflicts with hunters, hikers and other people in the woods are mounting, as is evidence of widespread erosion and environmental damage.

Minnesota lawmakers last year took action to designate trails and began limiting cross-country travel in state forests. Counties, townships and cities also are taking action. The Duluth City Council last week banned ATVs from all city land.

The National Forest Service, which manages more than 190 million acres of land, is just late into the action.

"This is not an easy issue to tackle. But if we wait a day, a week or even a year, the impact on the land and the issues surrounding the problem will become even harder to deal with. We need to address the issue now," Bosworth said in announcing the proposal.

NATIONAL TEAM

Bosworth recently appointed a Forest Service ATV team composed of officials from several national forests. A draft plan is proposed for sometime this spring, and public input is expected this summer.

Liz Close, regional Forest Service recreation director in Ogden, Utah, and a member of the national ATV team, said it's not clear when trails will be designated in each forest and when cross-country travel will be banned. But the ultimate goal isn't in doubt.

"It used to be that terrain and technology were limiting factors and that we had only a few machines out there. Now, they can pretty much go anywhere, and the numbers are exploding," Close said. "We want to keep the decision on where ATV routes will be designated a local one.... But the message going out is clear -- that unlimited travel in national forests will be a thing of the past. The forests can't sustain it."

The new rule would affect the two-million-acre Superior National Forest and one-million-acre Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota as well as the 1.5-million-acre combined Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin.

Environmentalists are eager to see the rule in place.

"We applaud Chief Dale Bosworth for acknowledging the magnitude of the off-road vehicle problem and the need for a stronger approach to managing this form of recreation," said Scott Kovarovics, director of the Natural Trails and Waters Coalition. "The Forest Service has an opportunity to better protect the land, wildlife, private property and varied recreational opportunities for all Americans by applying common-sense limits to uncontrolled off-road vehicle use."

CONFUSING MIX

A single, national policy would certainly simplify the hodgepodge of ATV regulations on national forests that varies from region to region, even forest to forest.

For example, ATV riding is banned on federal land and roads within the Nicolet National Forest. But virtually all land and trails in the Chequamegon are open to ATVs, including cross-country travel.

In Minnesota, the Superior National Forest is mostly open to ATVs while the Chippewa is mostly closed, except on designated routes.

To further confuse the matter, all three Northland forests are developing new ATV regulations as part of their 20-year forest plan revisions. And it's not clear whether Forest Service officials will have to rewrite the local ATV rules again when the national rule is adopted.

Referring to the proposed national rule, Carol Booth, recreation specialist for the Superior National Forest, said "The planning people are talking about it, but it's not even a draft plan yet, and we're a long way into the process of developing our new forest plan."

New local regulations may move forward, then be amended when the national rule is implemented, she said.

No matter when the national rule is adopted, enforcement will remain an issue. Environmental groups are pushing for more money for forest rangers, noting the average Forest Service law enforcement officer must cover an area half the size of Delaware, more than 460,000 acres.

So far, ATV enthusiasts aren't panicking at the proposed ban. In fact, many ATV groups support the ban on unlimited travel through forests -- as long as an adequate network of trails is designated.

That issue may be the sticking point as the proposal moves forward. ATV groups will push for access to every logging road and two-rut trail. Environmentalists will push for very limited trails on environmentally sound routes only.

"We've supported that idea all along. If we get the riders out of the woods and onto the designated trails, then we get money for those trails and can repair the damage and keep the system going," said Len Hardy of rural Nashwauk, vice president of the All Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota.

Hardy said the ATV problem corresponds with the snowmobile situation in the early 1970s. Snowmobiles were the scourge of many areas -- blasted for their noise, danger and property damage as people drove them on roads, private property and fields -- until a network of designated trails was developed.

Now, snowmobile registration and gas tax money goes to build, enforce and maintain trails, and complaints are a fraction of what they were.

"That's where we want to be in a few years," Hardy said. "We want to be using our own (registration) money for the clubs to keep the trails up."