Common ground

by Michael Bateman

Mention wilderness, public lands, off-road vehicles, mountain bikes, or travel management plans, and, regardless of the crowd, you are likely to get an impassioned response. People feel strongly about decisions regarding the use of our public lands, and with more of us using the land in more diverse ways, regulatory agencies are under increasing pressure to determine appropriate uses, then manage the land accordingly. Unfortunately, many of the ways we use public lands are incompatible. Things can get contentious. Instead of engaging in enlightened discussion, we become argumentative and insulting, utterly closed to the points of view of our opponents. Land protection debate degenerates to a matter of bias and opinion and self-interest.

We judge others and their pursuits based on our own values. We cut trees and build illegal trails. We fail to agree on which parcels of land have wilderness qualities. We shout each other down in meetings and publicly denounce not only opposing opinions but also the people holding them. However, while we fight for our rights—to access, to recreation, to new roads and trails—many of us don’t even realize that without healthy land, we have nothing.

“It’s perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you’re going to enjoy the fruits of the outdoors, you’re going to have to take care of it,” says National Rifle Association director Sue King in Sierra Magazine.

In order that recreationists and species can both thrive in the
mountains in the future, recreationists like this rider must be
willing to respect the needs of wildlife and other users, and make
sacrifices in when and how they use the land. Photo by Vera Smith.

Polls show that more than eighty percent of hunters and anglers support keeping remaining wild places free of roads, and over ninety percent support protecting opportunities for solitude and natural experiences. These numbers, taken from a traditionally conservative demographic, are in line with public opinion regarding the environment. Why, then, are we continuing to lose ground?

We’re losing ground because we have become self-righteous and self-centered, more concerned with our own claims than we are with what is best for the land. We are so afraid of losing our rights that we refuse to see enforceable land protection not as a threat to our recreation opportunities but as the only way to maintain the quality of our outdoor experiences.

We’re losing ground because we are reluctant to make hard choices. We claim to be pro-environment, but we drive vehicles that get medieval gas mileage. We speak out in support of wilderness, but we vote against it if it means losing even a few miles of a precious mountain biking trail.

We’re losing ground because we have become so polarized that we can’t see what we have in common.

Some believe the land has intrinsic value. Others gauge the land’s worth by the value they can extract from it. Some prize the freedom and sense of adventure they feel when exploring new terrain: but regardless of the attitude toward the land, it is easy to discount conflicting ideas.

Public land is our land. We each have a right to use the land within the bounds of the law. In Colorado that means we can drive our ORVs on over ninety percent of BLM lands, forty-seven percent of which has no travel restrictions. However, some rights subsume others. For example, the right to live peacefully overrides the right to listen to music at thunderclap volume. Similarly, a person on a motorized dirt bike has a right to ride a trail that is open to motorized use; but a mountain biker’s right to quiet recreation supersedes the dirt biker’s right. And a hiker’s right to walk in solitude, in a primitive landscape, overrides them both. Ultimately, though, the rights of the land have primacy over all others.

Under the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976, the BLM has an obligation to prevent undue and unnecessary degradation of public lands. Does this mean prohibiting activities that are inherently destructive? Or does it mean subsequently mitigating the effects of those activities? Relations between multiple users have deteriorated so far that we cannot agree.

An ORV on an authorized road, a mountain bike on a trail, or a single pair of boots in the wilderness does little damage to the land. However, large numbers of irresponsible users can cause permanent harm. Cross-country ORV travel leaves indelible scars on the landscape; renegade mountain bike-trail building channels water and fragments otherwise undeveloped acreage; switchback-cutting and trail-braiding by irresponsible hikers kill trailside vegetation and open the door to destructive erosion. Sophisticated machinery allows us to penetrate remote areas, and increasing numbers of recreationists intensify pressure on heavily used land.

We all admit these problems, but we can’t agree on how to solve them. Environmentalists suggest adopting “closed unless marked open” and “designated routes only” travel limitations; however, off-road vehicle users consider these policies an erosion of their rights. They support “existing routes” limitations, which the enviros say are unenforceable. There is a fundamental lack of trust between the two groups that is symptomatic of the entire environmental question.

As Barry Lopez writes in Testimony, “We need a pause the like of which we’ve never had in Western civilization. We need to halt at watershed junctures, and ask not only what is fair, just, and reasonable, but what is enduringly wise.” He is referring to the fate of Utah’s public lands, but his message is germane in the broader context of the national battle over the environment. We need to set aside our differences and engage in substantive discourse. All our activities impact the land. If we want the land to survive, if we want to be able to enjoy our recreational activities in the future and pass that enjoyment on to our children, we need to make sacrifices today. Further, we need to stop looking at public lands through the lens of our own self-interest. It is time we decide what kind of legacy we want to leave our children: a landscape ruined by selfishness or a natural world held in trust by all.

Let us, then, sit down at the negotiating table, not as opponents, not as bikers and jeepers and environmentalists, but as neighbors and fellow stewards of a vast but dwindling national treasure. It is our responsibility to choose how best to conserve and spend the wealth. Let us approach the matter with the maturity it deserves.