Wilderness Designation

The Oregon Recreation Coalition supports Wilderness designation only in areas that truly meet the characteristics identified in the 1964 Wilderness Act, and where evidence of human activity does not exist and has not existed. We also support management of Wilderness areas for the use and enjoyment of the American people as required in the Act.

Areas of public land that show evidence of human influence such as roads, mines, timber harvest, motorized or mechanized use or other activity should not be included in any new Wilderness. Where such lands are of limited productivity, more sensitive, or capable of producing high quality recreation experiences they should be included in a new Congressional classification such as Backcountry.

Route Designation Process
Motorized Wheeled Off-Highway Vehicles

The Oregon Recreation Coalition supports the policy of allowing wheeled off-highway vehicles (OHV) use to roads and trails. Cross country travel should be limited only in areas where cross country use of OHV has been adequately studied and shown to cause adverse impacts. An open classification, which includes cross-country travel, may be appropriate in areas such as sand dunes, borrow pits, play areas, and other open lands. In areas where existing trails are causing detrimental impacts, relocation, or reconstruction shall be evaluated. Additional trails and connector routes should also be developed in areas where existing roads and trails are not providing the necessary quantity and quality of recreation experiences.

During the planning process, motorized travel shall be limited to specific designated routes only when a complete inventory and route analysis process has been completed. Use shall be limited to existing routes where no route analysis has been completed. Route systems should be interconnected to increase available opportunities and to disperse use wherever possible.

Route Designation Process
Snowmobiles

The Oregon Recreation Coalition acknowledges that an essential aspect of the snowmobiling experience is the freedom to travel off groomed routes to explore scenic snow-covered landscapes.
The establishment of groomed and ungroomed snowmobile trails should be determined by appropriate agencies in cooperation with state and local snowmobile organizations, other land management agencies, private landowners and other publics. The Coalition recognizes that limiting snowmobiles to designated routes may be appropriate in unique areas as determined by land managers using a thorough analysis and public involvement process.

Land Management Planning

The Oregon Recreation Coalition supports development of a travel management vision during Forest Plan revisions. Specific route designation should be accomplished in a separate process. Travel management planning must address reasonable, high quality access to all public lands. We recognize that some areas may not be appropriate or suitable for motorized routes, but motorized users should be able to access significant portions of the public lands with the attributes they enjoy. The process must comply with the following principles or guidelines:

General Travel Planning

Travel planning activities must recognize the clear distinction between providing an opportunity to reach a specific location and providing linear recreation facilities such as trails and scenic roads. Both are essential to adequate travel management decisions.

Travel management decisions reached in land management plans should include only guiding principles or decision criteria. Specific route decisions should be included in a separate document. Specific route planning may be completed concurrently with larger land management plans.

Trail Planning

All planning for trails and recreation roads (linear recreation facilities) must adopt a “systems approach” which includes:

• Identification and preservation of existing trail opportunities.

• Identification of new trail connections necessary to complete an interconnected system of trails that:
  

  • Provides loop opportunities

  • Provides access to desirable areas

  • Provide access to other recreation and support facilities

  • Provide visitors with options to experience the full range of recreation experiences from easy family rides to challenging routes.
    

Road Closures

Prior to closure of any road determined to be surplus to the agency administrative needs, the route should be considered for conversion to a trail. The road closure decision should document this analysis and the reasons for eliminating the trail conversion alternative.

Road obliteration or decommissioning should not be undertaken if a non-inventoried roadless area of 1000 acres or more would be created by the action. Roads in these areas may be administratively closed to traffic if necessary but they should remain in place.

Prior to a route being closed because of environmental effects, a reconstruction or relocation alternative must be considered. If relocation is a viable option, the relocation must be completed before the closure is implemented.

The differences in types of motorized recreation should be recognized. Over snow vehicles, for example, operate in a different time frame and have very different impacts on resources than wheeled vehicles operating on the land itself. These differences also exist within the wheeled vehicles. The experience of a motorcycle rider will be different on a single-track trail than it is on an ATV trail. The experience of an ATV rider will be different on a narrow ATV trail than it is on a logging road. Travel management should be tailored to the specific activity, place and time of year, not broad-brushed.

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

The Oregon Recreation Coalition supports the original purposes of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). These include conservation of ecosystems that provide important habitat for listed species, and implementing a program to recover their populations. However, we believe that the law has been misused and recommend that it be revised to include the following principles:

Listing decisions should be based on analysis of clearly distinct species, not questionable subspecies or isolated populations.

Marginal or occasionally used fringe range should not be managed as critical habitat. Only habitat truly and demonstratively important to survival of a species should be considered critical and its management modified for that purpose.

The full financial and social effects of all listings and habitat designations must be analyzed and disclosed.

Any listing or habitat designation that reduces, modifies or otherwise affects the value and uses of private land may be implemented only if the landowner is compensated for any loss of value.

Prior to any modification of land use activities, a clear and irrefutable link between the activity and adverse effects on the listed species or designated habitat must be established.

All listings or habitat designation decisions must be congruent with rigorous, objective, defensible and robust scientific review

When species recovery has met guidelines established in the recovery plan or where species have been erroneously listed, the delisting of such species must be expedited.

Vehicle Sound

The Oregon Recreation Coalition supports the implementation and enforcement of reasonable limitations on vehicle sound emissions. We recognize that excessive vehicle sound can cause social and environmental impacts and can result in reduced opportunities for motorized recreation. We therefore support any program that helps raise awareness and educate motorized recreationists in the merits of reducing their sound levels to a reasonable level.

We strongly encourage vehicle users to maintain their vehicles in a manner that minimizes sound levels. We believe the current State noise limit of 99 dbA is too high and is outdated. We support continued research by manufacturers and aftermarket companies to further reduce vehicle sound levels.