From the Nation Update section of today's San Diego Union Tribune. The Sierra Club is busy spreading their lies and of course the UT is more than willing to publish them...
Report: Alaska's parks hurt by ATVs
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- All-terrain vehicles are tearing up Alaska's public lands, and state and federal land managers rarely use their authority to stop them, according to a Sierra Club report.
The report, written by a former national park superintendent with funding from the Sierra Club and the Alaska Conservation Foundation, says ATV drivers have blazed trails through Wrangell-St. Elias National Park despite prohibitions there against cutting new trails. In other places, narrow ATV trails have widened to several hundred feet where drivers detour around streams and bogs.
The report recommends that land managers survey trails and designate trail systems to keep all-terrain vehicles confined.
"I want agencies to take a good, hard look at how they're managing resources," said Ray Bane, the report's author and a former superintendent at Katmai National Park. "ATVs are fragmenting habitat and causing severe soil damage that sometimes takes lifetimes to recover."
Wyn Menefee, a public information officer with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, said the state does not have enough enforcement agents to designate official trails and stop people from riding elsewhere. Closing state lands to ATV riding would be politically difficult, Menefee said.
Anchorage Daily News
Report: Alaska's parks hurt by ATVs
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- All-terrain vehicles are tearing up Alaska's public lands, and state and federal land managers rarely use their authority to stop them, according to a Sierra Club report.
The report, written by a former national park superintendent with funding from the Sierra Club and the Alaska Conservation Foundation, says ATV drivers have blazed trails through Wrangell-St. Elias National Park despite prohibitions there against cutting new trails. In other places, narrow ATV trails have widened to several hundred feet where drivers detour around streams and bogs.
The report recommends that land managers survey trails and designate trail systems to keep all-terrain vehicles confined.
"I want agencies to take a good, hard look at how they're managing resources," said Ray Bane, the report's author and a former superintendent at Katmai National Park. "ATVs are fragmenting habitat and causing severe soil damage that sometimes takes lifetimes to recover."
Wyn Menefee, a public information officer with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, said the state does not have enough enforcement agents to designate official trails and stop people from riding elsewhere. Closing state lands to ATV riding would be politically difficult, Menefee said.
Anchorage Daily News
