Conservation Alliance Company Supporters Email List

Them Skiers spend more money than we do !

This just goes to show that spending your money on motor specific clothing and gear (Klim, Motorfist) is the safest way to make sure none of your money goes towards organizations trying to eliminate your access to public lands.

Unfortunately that couldn't be any further from the truth, Gore is a huge supporter of the conservation alliance, and Gore=Klim. Yes, they made at least a one time donation to the BRC with some arm twisting but the big dollars are working against access. Unfortunately I doubt GE is much better and GE=Event=Motorfist. This is a great discussion, the word needs to continue to get out.

05900 said:

Them Skiers spend more money than we do !

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Are you sure about this?

Yeah I'm a decades long skier and on the personal level, there's no way in heII.

Now collectively I believe the skier/snowboarder dollars are way deeper. Precisely BECAUSE it involves less financial input from an individual and therefore there are more available participants.

That said, I'm a little leery of just outright writing off companies because they're on a donor list. Most of these groups cage their advocacy as 'creating opportunities for backcountry travel'. Well sure, that sounds great. You don't know that what that really means is 'banning sleds' unless you dig a little deeper or are a sledder who's seen these pricks in action. But a company who makes socks might not know this. At the very least, if you're going to send them a letter, let them know their money is going to fight user access from a potential customer base. I've already done that with a shop here who was giving to snowlands, the CA version of winter wildlands. The dude who runs the shop rides a friggin sled and had no idea. Not everyone's a dick just because they give money to a group that promotes outdoor recreation. They might genuinely not know.

I have said this many times before, but this is the first time here.

The outdoor recreationist MUST create and maintain organizations such as the greenies do. Something has to change here, and the opposition has pointed the direction, but we have not followed. Unfortunately the funding for this effort will have to be taken out of our pockets twice.

Hunters pay a tax in the form of licenses, snowmobilers pay a fee, sometimes for licensing AND land use. Everyone pays a tax for sporting goods. After all, who ever heard of licensing a pair of skis or a snow board, or even a mountain bike every year? Because WE pay for their use of the land that our tax dollars created in the first place. The problem is that we are spending this money for upkeep of the lands and the enforcement of those rules(that are now being used against us). Unfortunately NONE of the money spent is for KEEPING that land!

Here in Iowa, we have all these special interest groups starting to complain when we have to thin the deer herds in the city, wanting to protect the poor brown tasty critters. Guess what? Ask the 80 yr old generation, and you'll find out that there were NO deer in the state when they grew up. Only after the fish and wildlife fund provided seasons and release projects did the population come to what it is now. This land use garbage is simply taking that land use away from those that have paid for it in the first place!

What all this comes down to is this. We need an interest group of our own. The NRA speaks for the gun owners, although I think rather extreme in their approach, but we need organizations on our side pushing just as adamantly as the opposition that the land is there for us to enjoy, use, respect, and protect! Unfortunately this is going to hit the sportsmen in the pocket, but that's what it's going to take.

You notice that the SAME people are always representing the opposition, but from our side, the rock crawlers are covering their own arse struggling to get numbers. So are the snowmobilers, the dirt bikers, the hunters, etc. While they have a unified force fighting everything, we are a divided force. You've heard the phrase "divide and conquer"? We are divided. How long before we have been conquered?

What will it take for organizations to open and begin work on our side? When will you walk into Walmart and be asked to donate to a fund to support land use? The same fund that they collect for at the motorcycle shop, the SKI store and lodge, the snowmobile dealer? $15 a head would go MILES to launch a campaign similar to the opposition to support the OPEN use of the lands that are OURS to begin with! Notice I listed the ski shops too? Hey, they do it, and the use the land. They want the land too!

We need to start working smarter, not harder. Someone PLEASE take these ideas and run with them! IT'S A WAY TO MAKE A LIVING for crimany sake, but you HAVE to support ALL land usage, not just one group!

There's my .02

Land Use

Sling-it said it all, I Agree !!