Together, WE can make a difference

[bbbom]

I just read this post off our club's little site - it was encouraging to me, after allllllllllllll the freaking meetings myself and a couple others from our club have been going to on land use management policy revisions. Unfortunately, at most of the meetings, we are totally outnumberd by some very obnoxious greenies (are there any other types?).

It can be quite intimidating and I know a lot of people that would like to be involved in the process feel out of place so they avoid attending the meetings OR they attend but never say anything. I've never been easily intimidated and I can generally speak my mind BUT even I have felt the overwhelming hate these egocentric whackos permeate the room with. I was quite happy to read the following from one of our club members in regards to the latest Kootenai, Idaho Panhandle Revision (KIPZ) Meetings because it reiterates that WE can make a difference. Guess my phone and email will be even busier this weekend than it normally is - I'm even calling in the horse people!

motorheads rule!
« on: Mar 11th, 2004, 2:46pm »

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last nite's Sandpoint KIPZ meeting had an unusual turn of events and shows what a few phone calls will do. Usual turnout has been about 25-30 people with the ratio of about 2 motorized users to the rest...well you know. There were 125 people at last nite's session and 95 to 100 were of the motorized variety. The monkey wrench was in the house! Ranger thingy Kramer didn't know what to do but he managed to come up with a novel strategy where he separated the comment forms into 3 boxes; been to all of the meetings, been to some of the meetings, or been to only one of the meetings, and after the comments were turned in, one of the more "knowlegable in the ways of the FS", got up, took the three boxes and mixed all of the comments together. To say that the mood of the meeting was different, would be an understatement. It's important that you call your friends, and get people to turn out to these meetings. size matters!

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Just like the rear side panel of my bike says

size matters!

If there are meetings concerning OHV's in your area, get yourself and ALL of your fellow riders there! If you don't do it then you can NOT complain when the riding areas are closed! Even if you can not physically attend the meeting - get anyone you can to attend for you and send written comments to the meeting with them. At the very least, take a minute to write your comments and get them to the agency working on the revisions.

Up here our entire riding area is under the gun - we have the Kootenai, Idaho Panhandle National Forest Plan Revisions; Colville, Okanogan, Wenatchee National Forest Plan Revisions; Batey Bould Trail System Reconstruction Proposal; Pend Oreille Valley Recreation Travel Management Plan; Tri-County Economic District Tourism and Recreation Plan; Wash State Dept. of Natural Resources Little Pend Oreille Trail System Plan; Idaho Parks & Rec OHV Management Policy Plan all with public meetings and focus group meetings that motorized users MUST attend or lose the ability to preserve what we have. Forget expansion, we need to save what we have first and if we have a strong enough showing (meaning more than the 3 -4 of us regulars that are at every meeting) we could move for expansion.

If you have NOTHING going on in your area you still can do SOMETHING - the National OHV Strategy is currently underway and we will ALL need to get involved on this one!

http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/

Firecracker I'm calling you out woman! You need to rally all your motorhead friends to these last 3 KIPZ meetings!

They are all held at the Spokane BLM Office 1103 N. Fancher Rd from 6:30pm - 9:00 pm.

March 23rd - Recreation, Roadless Areas and Proposed Wilderness

April 13th - Access and Road Management

April 27th - Finalize Desired Conditions for All Revision Topics

 

[dirty~d~]

Admins:

Any chance of this thread getting a sticky??

Lori, it looks like I'm going to miss being able to attend that last meeting by three days. Is there anything I can do from here for you guys? More letters perhaps?

 

[bbbom]

Thanks D!

Letters are always helpful, especially in regards to the National Forest Revisions - they are OUR forests so we ALL need to let the manager's of the lands know our opinions.

Even just a simple letter stating that you want to see provisions for providing quality motorized recreation in the National Forest is helpful.

Links to the Forests up here under revision are:
Colville, Okanogan, Wentachee Forests

Kootenai, Idaho Panhandel Forests

We have a pretty good handle on the other areas but the National Forest issues are heavily influenced by the greenies.

Links to some GREAT information to use as ammunition in letters can be found here:

AMA Trail System Handbook

Study on effects of various trails on Wildlife

National Off Highway Vehicle Conservation Council

The AMA book is interesting and basically validates everything that we (normal dirtbiking recreationists) have been telling the land managers. I tracked down the author who happens to have helped with the Batey Bould trails years ago and I'm trying to get him and one of his partners on board to work for the FS on the Reconstruction Planning.

He presents some great arguments for why we need our trails and how unfairly we've been treated in land use decisions.

The NOHVCC is a resource for documents pertaining to OHV's and the link I provided is to their library of info. I've got several that I'm ordering and passing around.

The Study link sends you to the doc that the FS prepared and it states again that non-motorized use DOES disturb wildlife, it ain't just us motoheads. It also points out that MORE STUDY is definitely needed before informed decisions can be made on how to manage recreation.

 

[firecracker22]

Firecracker I'm calling you out woman! You need to rally all your motorhead friends to these last 3 KIPZ meetings!

Will do, let's see if we can make some noise!