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I don't know if this has been brought up in the past but here goes.
As I look at the fight to access public grounds I notice that "our side" is fighting big groups like the Sierra Club or The Wilderness Society. These groups have the backings of millions with full time staffs. These big groups are used for closure in areas of millions of acres down to small parcels of several acres. When we fight smaller closures in our states, we usually fight them at a local level, with small groups.
An example, I'm from the midwest and do much of my riding in the Hiawathi National Forest in the eastern u.p. of Michigan. When some local "tree huggers" wanted to shut down snowmobiles and atv's because of the Canadian Lynx, they had the backing of the Sierra Club with all its money and staff. Fortunately they failed, for now. The local clubs did a great job in this case.
Our problem is we are not united, we have too many groups. The manufactures have groups, both atv's and snowmobiles. There are snowmobile groups, atv groups, motorcycle groups, horse groups, etc. All these groups do the best they can and I applaud them for there efforts.
We are asked to "join" multiple associations to help in our fight. I recommend that we do away with smaller groups and form one large group with local chapters, like the Sierra Club, Issac Walton, etc have done. Like it or not money and lobbying are big parts of wildernes groups.
We need to speak with one voice on the national level. Not being from the west...yet, I never heard of groups like SAWS until I looked at this site. No matter where you live, the west, midwest, east coast, south, we are all under fire and closures are happening everywhere.
I would like to hear peoples comments on how we can better unite. I am not a public speaker or writer. I struggle with words and writing and hope someone sees this idea and runs with it. Thanks for your time.
As I look at the fight to access public grounds I notice that "our side" is fighting big groups like the Sierra Club or The Wilderness Society. These groups have the backings of millions with full time staffs. These big groups are used for closure in areas of millions of acres down to small parcels of several acres. When we fight smaller closures in our states, we usually fight them at a local level, with small groups.
An example, I'm from the midwest and do much of my riding in the Hiawathi National Forest in the eastern u.p. of Michigan. When some local "tree huggers" wanted to shut down snowmobiles and atv's because of the Canadian Lynx, they had the backing of the Sierra Club with all its money and staff. Fortunately they failed, for now. The local clubs did a great job in this case.
Our problem is we are not united, we have too many groups. The manufactures have groups, both atv's and snowmobiles. There are snowmobile groups, atv groups, motorcycle groups, horse groups, etc. All these groups do the best they can and I applaud them for there efforts.
We are asked to "join" multiple associations to help in our fight. I recommend that we do away with smaller groups and form one large group with local chapters, like the Sierra Club, Issac Walton, etc have done. Like it or not money and lobbying are big parts of wildernes groups.
We need to speak with one voice on the national level. Not being from the west...yet, I never heard of groups like SAWS until I looked at this site. No matter where you live, the west, midwest, east coast, south, we are all under fire and closures are happening everywhere.
I would like to hear peoples comments on how we can better unite. I am not a public speaker or writer. I struggle with words and writing and hope someone sees this idea and runs with it. Thanks for your time.