Santa Fe national forest will be a quieter, sweeter-smelling place
Santa Fe National Forest will be a quieter, sweeter-smelling place under a U.S. Forest Service proposal released Thursday that calls for closing more than half its existing road and trail network to motorized vehicles.
Off-road, motorized recreation is a hot topic among forest users nationwide, and the Santa Fe forest plan has already drawn both praise and condemnation, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported today.
"This is a huge step in the right direction for protecting water, wildlife and places of refuge," Bryan Bird of the nonprofit advocacy group WildEarth Guardians told the New Mexican. He called it a "victory for quiet recreation," though it still must be approved and funds allocated to enforce the regulations, he said.
On the other side, off-road enthusiasts are fuming. Gordon Spingler of Los Alamos said the Forest Service plans would ban him and others in the Blackfeather Club from using trails they themselves built in the Jemez Mountains. The plan, which leaves motorcyclists with about 250 miles of trail throughout the 1.6-million-acre forest, "simply will not be acceptable to the motorcycle family. We will do everything in our power to change it," Spingler told the newspaper.
All national forests are in the process of designating specific roads, trails and other areas open to motorized use after the Forest Service identified off-road vehicle use and other "unmanaged recreation" as one of four major threats to forests nationwide — along with catastrophic fire, loss of open space and invasive species. Roads and trails that are not on the final motorized transportation map in each forest will be closed.
Santa Fe Forest Supervisor Dan Jiron told The New Mexican that the management change will protect wildlife habitat, even as it provides hunters, campers, wood-cutters and others with motorized access to their favorite spots. "We have too many roads, and this is a significant reduction," he said.
The forest currently has more than 4,900 miles of official roads and nearly 600 miles of narrow trails open and regularly used by motorized vehicles. Just over half the forest has more roads per square mile than the current management plan considers standard.
The new plan would limit motorized use to 2,309 miles of roads and 250 miles for all-terrain vehicles and/or motorcycles.
Details of the plan, including maps, are on the Forest Service Web site. Forest officials will hold 13 public meetings throughout northern New Mexico, starting July 28. A meeting will also be held in Albuquerque on Aug. 20. Public comment will be taken at the meetings, or submitted electronically. The public comment period runs through Aug. 23.
Comments:
Posted 07/11/2008 23:32 with
It is predictable that the off road motorized crowd would scream like spoiled babies.
For years now, they have been the favored children. With impunity, they have roared through wilderness areas, through non motorized canyons, across private property. For years they have torn down signs and cut through fences and gates without the slightest of rebuke. Drunk on their power, they have created hundreds of miles of illegal trails, trails that cut right through zones clearly marked as closed to cross country travel.
I have seen them scatter wildlife, scar hillsides, destroy our historic trails, and flatten wet meadows into mud pits.
For years they have terrorized hikers, equestrians, and backpackers.
Now they have the temerity to claim they are being treated unfairly???
Excuse me while I laugh long and hard.
Posted 07/13/2008 09:44 with
The new plan, with some tweaking, is a great start to getting motorized impacts under control. Now the task will be actually enforcing it. Hunters, fishermen, river runners, among other groups, have all had to learn to live with limits in the form of licenses, permits, designated campsites and hunting units, etc. It’s time the motorized crowd learned to live with some limits, too. We all have the right to use our public lands, but on one has the right to abuse them.
Posted 07/17/2008 14:02 with
Trust me…do not take this lightly.
NFS just went through the same thing down here in the Sandia Ranger District and the result was heavily in favor of anyplace where off-road motor vehicles are currently being used. The end result was that they more or less gave a rubber stamp to existing conditions making whatever use currently existed “officially sanctioned”. The NFS will claim that they are doing you a big favor by limiting use to only specific trails, and not between trails or allowing people to blaze new ones… while at the same time admitting they do not have the resources to enforce any of that.
In short.. I think they are very short staffed, under funded.. and my impression down here at least.. is that they did what was easiest..i.e. pander to the off-road crowd.
My word of advice…create a ruckus, be loud and be heard clearly and early. None of that really happened down here, and much to my regret I wasn’t paying attention until the last couple months after most of the meetings had been held.