You likely know about the controversy surrounding the administration’s decision to reverse the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Policy directive. The “Roadless Rule,” as it’s called, responded to nationwide support for keeping inventoried roadless areas within the national forest system as they were. Hundreds of public hearings around the country and over 1.5 million comments supported the rule.
As this landmark policy for protecting wild parts of the national forests is being dismantled, another new order is also in the works, and it’s related.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing new rulemaking to revise the Forest Service’s travel management regulations. The writeup in the Federal Register is hard to interpret but the basic thrust is to say that existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points within the forests are open to “appropriate public use” unless closure or restriction is required (which places the burden on the forests to extensively document reasons for a closure). I read it as a reversal of the policy that has been in place for 20 years, again as a result of public pressure for the forests to do something about unregulated motor vehicle use in the forests.
In the mid-20th century, national forests were open to any transportation mode, and there weren’t many of them: old Army Jeeps were the closest thing to an off-road vehicle that existed at the time. Honda 90s were low-powered motorcycles that didn’t suffer steep grades.
As wheeled off-road vehicles became more prominent and varied, things changed. Deep ruts and scars started showing up on bare hillsides and complaints from the public due to conflicts increased. Noxious weeds were introduced into areas where none had grown before, and creek fords became eroded gullies.
There’s a petty long history of attempts to deal with the controversy about where off-road vehicles can go. During the Nixon administration, in 1972, the first national attempt to manage them responded to the growing use of trail bikes, snowmobiles, dune-buggies, all-terrain vehicles and other types of motor vehicles in public lands.
Non-motorized trails will go the way of the dodo if this proposal moves forward.
“The widespread use of such vehicles on the national forests and BLM lands,” Nixon’s directive stated, “often for legitimate purposes but also in frequent conflict with wise land and resource management practices, environmental values, and other types of recreational activity, has demonstrated the need for a unified Federal policy toward the use of such vehicles on the public lands.”
The 1972 directive told agencies to take action to ensure that off-road vehicles would be controlled and directed “to protect the resources of those lands, to promote the safety of all users of those lands, and to minimize conflicts among the various uses of those lands.” But it didn’t really tell them how.
In my time working for the Forest Service, beginning in the late 1970s, I don’t remember any major actions taken to fulfill this directive. We had some provisions in forest plans to address it, but if it went beyond that, I can’t say.
In 2005, regulations were revised again to address what was now called travel management, and to clarify policy related to motor vehicle use. The rule required designation of roads, trails and areas that are open to motor vehicles and to prohibit them elsewhere.
It took two years for the Forest Service to give more specific direction: each forest was to designate roads and trails that would be open to motor vehicle use and to create a map for the public to use. This put to an end the situation that prevailed within the Jackson and Buffalo ranger districts (in the Bridger-Teton National Forest) whose travel maps had large blocks of appropriately shaded “gray areas” where one could take a vehicle anywhere, on or off trail.
While I led the recreation program for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the proliferation of user-created trails and roads was one of the most urgent issues we had to confront. In 2009, after two years of public involvement, field trips and study to determine appropriate routes for vehicle use, Bridger-Teton’s travel plan was completed. Result: trails for motor vehicles were built and maintained to standard, damage to watershed and soil resources was addressed where possible, and user conflicts were reduced.
Now, as with the Roadless Rule, the administration wants to go back to an “open unless specifically closed” way of dealing with off-road vehicles.
Several concerns occur to me related to this change. The Forest Service has neither funds nor personnel to place signs, gates or other structures at the start of every closed-to-motor-vehicles route. I’ve seen plenty of vandalized closure signs and gates where off-road vehicles are not allowed; even in spots with large boulders, people just drove around them.
The proposed rule change will also remove e-bikes from motor vehicle classification. They would be allowed wherever other forms of non-motorized travel is allowed, even those trails currently closed to e-bikes and managed for horse and foot traffic. As technology continues apace, there are now small e-motorcycles that would be hard to distinguish from e-bikes, so why not allow them too? Non-motorized trails will go the way of the dodo if this proposal moves forward.
This rule change, according to the Federal Register, is intended to “establish a uniform national policy favoring increased access while simplifying regulatory requirements and preserving local decision-making.” It seems to me that the national forests and other public lands in the Greater Yellowstone region already offer plenty of access: there are over 7,000 miles of road in the area, and over 1,700 miles of trails managed for motorized use, which does not include state and BLM lands.
What isn’t considered in the proposal? Its potential effects on watershed, wildlife, soil and vegetation. People come to Greater Yellowstone in order to enjoy natural beauty, see wildlife and find quiet. As the region continues to set records for the number of visitors each year, what people are finding when they get here are high prices, overflow parking and crowds. Will “increased access” to backcountry spread more crowds over more area? Time will tell.
The Forest Service’s current open routes for motor vehicles and accompanying maps came about after an announcement by the agency’s chief, Dale Bosworth, when he described four central threats to the national forests in the early 2000s. The four threats were wildfire and fuel accumulation; invasive species; loss of open space; and unmanaged recreation. In a speech, he said, “We have got to improve our management so we get responsible recreational use based on sound outdoor ethics.”
Since it’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about the Four Threats and how they are being addressed, I wanted to read the entire announcement and speech. I found a link to it at fs.usda.gov. Below is what came up. I guess it’s a pretty good answer to my question about where the agency is going.
Comments on this proposal are due by September 23. Here is the link to the official federal register notice, and where to post comments. I hope it works better than the one above.
