here we go

SAWS members,

For your reading enjoyment. Maybe you would like to buy a copy of this book for your coffee table; I THINK NOT.

I was not pleased to read this author's diatribe and major lies and distortions, but I still felt it was important to show you once again how far the extreme green will go to ensure that snowmobiling will be eliminated from OUR public lands.

Of course there are always going to be a few bad apples in every form of recreation that make the majority of that form of recreation look bad, and I am positive they have several pictures of some motorized bad apples in this book, but give me a break. This book is way off the deep end and does not apply to the majority of motorized recreationists, and especially not snowmobilers.

Dave
Snowmobile Alliance of Western States

http://www.chelseagreen.com/2007/items/thrillcraft
Thrillcraft

The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation

George Wuerthner
Our collective natural heritage is at risk. Thirst for motorized recreation in America is creating lasting environmental impact upon our remaining wild lands. With over 100 stirring color photographs and powerful essays from policy experts, scientists, and environmental activists, Thrillcraft bears witness to the senseless destruction that is risking access to the beauty, silence, and splendor of our country’s natural world for future generations.

Thrillcraft exposes the lasting damage done to our land, water, and air from the growing plague of jet skis, quads, dirt bikes, dune buggies, snowmobiles, and other motorized recreational craft that are penetrating the last bastions of wild America. In stark detail the book describes how offroad vehicle use is responsible for wildlife habitat fragmentation, disturbance of sensitive wildlife, soil erosion, spread of invasive weeds, loss of silence, as well as water and air pollution.

This important and beautiful tome will be a treasured addition to any environmentalist’s or conservationist’s library.

Introduction

This book is about thrillcraft and the scope of their social and environmental impacts on public lands. As employed here, the term thrillcraft refers to motorized vehicles used for recreational purposes. These machines are typically driven off highways and streets and are also knownas off-highway vehicles (OHVs) or off-road vehicles (ORVs). The most common thrillcraft are jet skis, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), airboats, swamp buggies, dune buggies, dirt bikes, some four-wheel-drive trucks, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs). For the purpose of this book, snowmobiles are also included in this category.

Some thrillcraft have common practical applications—a farmer might use an ATV to move cows from one pasture to another; a ski resort might use a snowmobile to move an injured skier off a slope. However, the majority of these machines sold today are used primarily for recreation where speed or the ability to encroach upon and overcome difficult terrain is the chief goal.

The use of these machines for such purposes often results in environmental degradation, including soil erosion; water, noise, and air pollution; destruction of vegetation; fragmentation of wildlife habitat; loss of wilderness values; and other associated impacts upon land and people. The increasing use of these machines on public lands is now a national concern. Indeed, former chief of the Forest Service, Dale Bosworth, recently listed ORVs as one of four major threats to public lands today.

Public lands—including national parks, seashores, recreation areas, and forests, as well as wilderness areas, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, Bureau of Reclamation lands, Army Corp of Engineer lands, and state parks, to name but a few—are the heart of the “commons,” a timehonored idea that certain lands must be available to all citizens rather than privately held. In a sense, everyone owns the commons or, from a slightly different perspective, nobody does. In either case, they are to be shared responsibly by everyone so that everyone may enjoy and benefit from them. The integrity of these commons is compromised when the special values associated with them—wildlife habitat, soils, vegetation, and nonphysical qualities such as quietude—are despoiled, harmed, or injured. Other “commons,” such as air and water, are protected by laws and regulations that limit the rights of citizens or companies to degrade them.

Negative effects on other people attempting to enjoy the commons are also a major impact of thrillcraft: the noise, the speed, the boorish behavior usually associated with these machines is almost universally disruptive. One study in Montana concluded that 89 percent of hikers and 84 percent of horseback riders found that the presence of motorcycles was incompatible with their activities and impaired their experiences. In another study of snowmobilers and cross-country skiers in Alberta, Canada, researchers found that skiers were greatly impacted by the presence of snowmobiles while the opposite was not the case. Similar one-way conflicts were documented in a study at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina where nonmotorized users were impacted by ORVs, while motorized users were not affected by the presence of the nonmotorized public. These findings are particularly disturbing because thrillcraft users make up a small minority—estimated to be no more than 5 to 7 percent—of all public lands users. In a study of trail users on the Gallatin National Forest near Yellowstone National Park, only 3 percent of the respondents to a survey were engaged in motorized recreation, while 96 percent were engaged in nonmotorized activities. Because of this great imbalance, there is growing public support for limiting or banning ORVs. Out of 7,600 comments on the travel plan for the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana, 98 percent of the respondents opposed ORV use on the Rocky Mountain Front.

Despite these impacts on the public, most government agencies have done little to regulate these machines. According to the Natural Trails and Water Coalition, the majority of public lands are currently open to unrestricted ORV use, including 93 percent of the 264 million acres under BLM administration, outside of Alaska. Public lands agencies such as the Forest Service have never done a thorough environmental analysis of the long-term effects of ORV use on public lands, nor is the federal government striving for a consistent national policy. As of 2006, some 30 percent of all national forests have a policy that restricts off-road travel in particular areas, and posts “closed” signs. Another 30 percent have the opposite policy where certain areas are posted open to such use. Many forests have no definitive policy at all, and only a few, including the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, currently prohibit ORV use (though snowmobiles are permitted on designated trails in the White Mountain National Forest). The majority of national forests merely condone the existing use and, in limited ways, attempt to control its worse abuses. A similar lack of clear direction exists for most BLM lands. Fortunately, many national parks are offlimits to ORVs, except in Alaska, where ORVs are regularly allowed to tear up the fragile tundra and disrupt vegetation that covers permafrost.

While thrillcraft use is inherently destructive, the individuals involved are not necessarily bad people. Most would make good neighbors. When those same people straddle one of these machines while on public lands, however, they become a public nuisance or worse. They have what could be considered a bad habit, much like cigarette smoking, and by the same token, the freedom to inflict the negative impacts of this bad habit on others needs to be questioned. When otherwise good people ride these machines—machines designed to go fast, be loud and noisy, and tear up landscapes—it is the machines and the behavior that they engender that is objectionable. But can this current situation on our public lands be changed? Can we imagine a future without thrillcraft? A few decades ago, smoke-free public places were unheard of and unimaginable. Now they are increasingly a present reality. Similarly, we must believe in, and work toward, a future in which our public lands will be thrillcraft-free.

Despite the negative effects associated with ORVs that have been documented by independent research, many groups and government agencies still do not challenge the notion that ORVs should be permitted on our public commons.8 Thrillcraft advocates take advantage of this situation and frequently pioneer new routes into previously motor-free landscapes. In areas that are closed to ORV use, repeated violations overwhelm the regulatory capacity of government agencies, sometimes forcing the agencies to incorporate the area into land management transportation plans and legalize such use. If one compares thrillcraft use to a resource extraction activity, such as logging, one can see how absurd such a process can be. Imagine if a timber company bulldozed a road into a basin and began logging the trees without agency oversight or consultation. Though clearly a case of trespassing and theft, when ORVs employ the same invasive technique and have a similar damaging effect on our public lands, the common response is to ultimately accept the use as "legitimate." Why should we permit these destructive machines to assault our public property?

Allow me to indulge in imagining a new sport in order to emphasize what's at stake here. How about "recreational bulldozing"? Imagine people purchasing sporty bulldozers and making their way toward our public lands. Off they rumble—black smoke belching from their noisy engines—to tear up the terrain, plow new roads and trails, knock down trees and other vegetation, and generally wreak havoc. Would anyone accept or condone such behavior? Obviously this is a somewhat wild notion, but the end result of concentrated thrillcraft use—the compounded effect of jet skis, dirt bikes, dune buggies, snowmobiles, and swamp buggies—is not much different than if the land were actually being invaded by a bunch of bulldozers.

When thrillcraft dominate an area, other users of the land are displaced or have their own experiences diminished. And, because thrillcraft disturb wildlife, fragment plant and animal habitat, spread exotic weeds, cause soil erosion, pollute water, degrade air quality, shrink wildlands, destroy values such as silence, and even pose a physical danger to other people, collectively these machines are now a major threat to our public lands heritage.

This book gives considerable attention to resource extraction roads that are penetrating our last roadless re***es, subsequently creating new “trailheads” for ORVs to invade the remaining wildlands. If the goal is to control the expansion of thrillcraft, such roads would need to be reduced and eliminated.

This book also looks at thrillcraft as symptomatic of a deeper dysfunction in our culture by examining and exposing the underlying assumptions and trends that support such irresponsible behavior.

Some of the language used in the book may be described as incendiary. Unfortunately, there is no nice way to describe the true dangers thrillcraft pose to the integrity of our public lands: they terrorize wildlife and other people;destroy the quiet and peace of the woods; and pollute, degrade, and vandalize much of our natural legacy. If the words used to describe these activities seem a bit too harsh, it may be because we have become too complacent about such damage and abuse in our society today.

Do we really want to waste our time debating where it’s okay to trash the public lands and where it isn't? Shouldn’t we all be saying that an activity that damages the land and ruins everyone else’s experience of nature is an inappropriate use of these lands? At one time, the tobacco companies and cigarette smokers had signicant political clout. Over time, the idea that someone had a "right" to smoke in public buildings or public places has given way to restrictions that are based on what’s best for the general health and public well-being.

Most private landowners do not and would not allow these kinds of activities on their own property,so why should the public domain suffer what the private sector would not? The purpose of this book will be realized if you, the reader, are compelled and inspired to help stop the abuse that is occurring right now on our public lands. We need to take back those lands and treat them as sacred ground they are.