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UFWDA Land Access Report-2007

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UFWDA Land Access Report-2007

Postby tammylynn » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:34 pm

I thought some might find this Land Report interesting. I have copied and pasted this from the 2007 UFWDA Annual Report. It is rather long-so read at your own leisure.

Land use/access issues
This has been a busy year within the land use/access arena. With the big shift to the Democratic congress, a couple of new wilderness bills are being drafted up for votes in Congress. The biggest one will start in California and the new Boxer/Feinstein bill called the California Wild Heritage Act (S. 2432 / HR 5006). This bill would designate 2.5 million acres and 480 miles of wild and scenic rivers throughout California. This is the start of the new wilderness bills to be introduced into Congress in my opinion. We need everyone to pay attention to this bill and write to their representatives to defeat this bill.

Blue Water Lawsuit
SUCCESS! Court Rules in Favor of UFWDA and its Recreation Partners Against Bluewater Network, Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads, and other Environmentalists UFWDA and its recreation partners intervened on behalf of the National Park Service (NPS) in a 2005 lawsuit brought by Bluewater Network, Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads (Wildlands CPR), and National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) against the NPS. The purpose of the suit was to prohibit ORV use in parks across the country. UFWDA and our recreation partners Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance (CHAPA), American Sportfishing Association (ASA), Dare and Hyde Counties, North Carolina, and United Mobile Sportfishermen (UMS) asked the court to dismiss all 8 issues in the case, arguing that the environmental groups lacked standing and failed to properly state their claim. The other intervenors in the case filed similar claims as UFWDA and included the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America (SVIA), the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), and the BlueRibbon
Coalition (BRC). ?The case will move forward but is restricted to a very narrow set of issues?, stated Carla Boucher, nationally-recognized attorney for United Four Wheel Drive Associations. ?The court
ruled on March 21, 2007 that Bluewater did not have standing on any of the issues and granted our request to dismiss them from the case entirely. The court found in our favor on all but 2 of the issues and limited another issue to just 3 of the 18 park units cited?, commented Boucher. ?Recreation will continue to vigilantly protect access in the 3 remaining parks at issue in the case and fulfill our UFWDA mission to protect, promote, and provide 4x4 recreational access worldwide?, Boucher stated.

U.S. Forest Service:
The U.S. Forest Service has a couple of projects ongoing that will affect our use of the forests. The first is Forest Certification. This is a joint venture with the Forest Service and Pinchot Institute to evaluate the potential consistency of forest certification with the Forest Services mission to conserve and sustainably manage Federal public lands. The primary goal of the study is to examine the consistency of current land and resource management activities on national forests with the requirements of the two major forest certification programs now operating in the United States.
Travel management Rule ? The forest service published a new regulation on November 9th, 2005, governing off-highway vehicles and other motor vehicle use on national forests and grasslands. The new rule requires each national forest or ranger district to designate those roads, trails, and areas open to motor vehicle use. The following states and forests have completed motor vehicle use maps:
Illinois ? Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Indiana ? Hoosier National Forest ? Brownstown Rd
Hoosier National Forest ? Tell City Rd
Missouri - Mark Twain National Forest ? Ceder Creek Rd
Mark Twain National Forest ? Houston-Rolla Rds
New York - Finger Lakes National Forest
West Virginia ? Monongahela National Forest ? North Half
Monongahela National Forest ? South Half
Visit the respective forest web site to see where they are in the travel management rule and designation of routes. This is normally a five step process.
Step 1 ? Complete inventory of all routes, including user created routes that were made by people traveling off road.
Step 2 ? Freeze in place inventoried routes and issue temporary Forest Orders to restrict travel to identified routes only. It is important to note that the identified routes were not the approved routes to be used by motorized vehicles.
Step 3 & 4 ? Start working with the forest service and others in the community who are interested in designating routes for motorized vehicles. The forest will also initiate an environmental analysis as required by NEPA. The analysis will begin with the forest issuing a
Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. Along with the NOI, a Proposed Action is prepared that explains how the Forest Service proposes to designate a forest-wide motorized vehicle route system. This is also known as the scoping period, and
during this period is when public comment is taken concerning their proposals.
Step 5 ? This is the issuance of a motorized vehicle user map that will identify the designated system of routes. These maps need to be reviewed closely to ensure they have the routes that we use. If it is not on this map, the questions need to be raised right away as to why not
with the local land manager.

BLM
Healthy Lands Initiative ? New concept for meeting emerging challenges in managing natural resources with flexible, landscape-level approaches for continues multiple use. The 2008 budget requests an increase of 15 million in funding for the BLM to begin implementing the initiative in six specific geographic areas to demonstrate the new approach. Projects are
located in the following locations, and their budget:
New Mexico ? 3.5 Million
Wyoming ? 4.5 Million
Utah ? 2.0 Million
Oregon/Idaho/Nevada ? 1.9 Million
Southern Idaho ? 1.8 Million
Colorado ? 1.3 Million
Project includes landscape-scale efforts such as restoration or habitat, week management, and improvement of riparian areas. See the BLM web site for info on each area. Travel Management ? One of the BLM?s greatest management challenges is providing reasonable and varied transportation routes for access to the public lands, and also providing
areas for a wide variety of both motorized and non-motorized recreational activities. By improving trail and OHV management through land use planning, BLM is minimizing impacts to wildlife habitat. BLM lands host over 55 million visitors annually, and this equates to an
increase of over 80% since 1990. Of this figure, BLM estimates that over 12 million participate in Off-highway travel. BLM classifies their lands into the following categories: Open ? Areas open to all types of vehicle use at all times, anywhere in the area. Limited ? Areas restricted at certain times, in certain areas, and/or to certain vehicle use. Closed ? Areas closed to all types of vehicle use. Undesignated ? No specific rule for this type at this time. Most of this land is in Alaska.
BLM has formed 25 Resource Advisory Councils (RACs) in the western States to provide advice on the management of public lands and resources. These citizen based groups provide an opportunity for individuals from all backgrounds and interests to have a voice in the
management of these lands, to help improve their health and productivity. Each RAC consists of 12 to 15 members from diverse interests in local communities, including ranchers, environmental groups, tribes, State and local government officials, academics, and other
public land users. Visit the BLM site under resources for info on the RAC in your area.

Current Land Use Issues:
The West Mojave (WEMO) plan is under attack by the by many different groups. This area covers a wide area in the Mojave Desert and many miles of OHV trails are in this area. The current lawsuit covers OHV use, grazing, mining and other uses of the desert. They are working to close all the trails and uses of the desert while attempting to preserve the Desert Tortoise.

TruckHaven/Octillo Wells Ca State OHV area. CORVA suspended their event in the Truckhaven hills after a lawsuit was filed by Center for Biological Diversity. Over the next couple of days in dealing with the courts, the court rulings went in favor of the OHV community. In the mean time the date of the event had past, and CORVA canceled their
event.

Paragon Adventure Park
Paragon Adventure Park was evicted from the property they had a 25 year lease on, and had been on the property for 3 years when they were told to pack it up, and leave. The original landowner wants to sell, so they can build an airport on the property. The park owners went to court, and in the end they lost in the courts. Now they are in the process of
looking for new property to rebuild a park on. This will take time to rebuild a new park, because they will have to build trails for all the users. The new property is smaller, and at the present time, they are only allowing groups on a reservation basis.

The Moab Field Office is changing its plans!
The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Moab and Monticello Field Offices (FO) are preparing new Resource Management Plans and formulating new Travel Management Plans. There isn't an activity occurring in the Moab FO that won't be affected by these new plans.
BLM began this process back in 2003. During 2003 and 2004 the BLM held meetings and received public comment on various planning issues.
Since that time the BLM has been working to formulate a wide range of management alternatives, each designed to respond to the issues in a different way. BLM is set to release their Draft Resource Management Plans (RMP), Comprehensive Travel Management Plans and the related Draft Environmental Impact Statements (Draft EIS) in the Summer of 2007.

Vehicle Restoration
A bill has been reintroduced in the West Virginia State Legislature that would further restrict the ability of West Virginia vehicle hobbyists from maintaining inoperable vehicles on private property. The legislation seeks to redefine ?abandoned motor vehicles? to include vehicles or vehicle parts which are either unlicensed or inoperable, or both, are not in an
enclosed building and have remained on private property for more than 30 days. Under current law, the abandoned vehicle law applies primarily to vehicles on public property. The bill would make violations a misdemeanor offense punishable by substantial fines, community service and jail. SEMA is opposing the bill as it makes no legal distinction between an owner using private property as a dumping ground and a vehicle enthusiast working to maintain, restore or construct a vehicle.
These is not the only bill like this, and expect many more as states are trying to clean up some of the illegal junkyards in peoples driveways.

International
UK - 4X4 insurance bills to soar Owners of 4x4s are likely to bear the brunt of changes in the way car insurance is calculated.
Drivers of Range Rovers, BMW X5s and Toyota Land Cruisers and other socalled Chelsea Tractors are likely to have to pay hundreds of pounds more for comprehensive insurance under a new risk assessment scheme to be announced today. The changes are also likely to hit drivers of sporty diesels and even some mid-range hatchbacks.
In future, insurance will be based on the likelihood of a car being damaged in a crash - or damaging another car - and the likely cost of repair. This could add hundreds of pounds to the typical comprehensive quote, currently about ?800. But the Association of British Insurers
said that, overall, the rises and cuts would balance out. Beach 4x4 ban sparks outrage Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk's decision not to budge on the 4x4 ban has evoked strong reaction from the Beach Action Committee of SA, which accuses him of closing the door to further good faith negotiations and of "hanging
small coastal communities out to dry". The association in St Lucia Estuary hit out at Van Schalkwyk's "rhetoric of better times to come" through his department's "splendid interventions". Past promises had "seldom if ever materialized", it added. The association, which has actively campaigned for more than three years for the controlled re-opening of beaches for recreational vehicles, said it was impossible to address in a single
press release "all the inconsistencies, assumptions, perceptions and lack of factual foundation" in both Van Schalkwyk's statement and the underlying socio-economic impact study report.

So, as you can see, there are land access/use issues all over the globe. We need to stay informed about issues in our local area, and those affecting the state we live in. Once we are familiar with what is happening in our own little state, we need to look at the national level also. Something happening one or two states over, could be the writing on the wall of what is headed your way for your state.
tammylynn
 
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