Our News and Views

Wildlands CPR Staff maintain a regularly updated blog ("Our News and Views"), with insightful commentary on off-road vehicle, wildland road, and restoration issues. Check out the posts below, or subscribe to our blog's RSS feed.

Major funding infusion for National Forest road removal

Created by Bethanie Walder on December 20, 2007

In the winter of 2006/2007, a “one hundred year” storm came tearing through the pacific and intermountain northwest, dumping massive amounts of rain, causing major landslides and road failures throughout the region. The flood even caused a major blowout on the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park.

Forest Service Takes Steps to Improve Water Quality in Tellico ORV Area, North Carolina

Created by Sarah Peters on December 20, 2007

The Forest Service announced yesterday that it would close the popular Tellico ORV area during the winter wet weather season, and keep four of the most eroded trails closed for a year. Kudos to the great work and dedication of the groups who have been working for may years on this area, including Trout Unlimited, North Carolina Council, Trout Unlimited, Tennessee Council, PEER, Wild South, and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

WAY more than “a few bad apples”

Created by Jason Kiely on December 14, 2007

Jim Furnish, the retired deputy chief of the Forest Service and 2008 board president of Wildlands CPR, is helping lead a group of land managers who are calling for strengthening and fully enforcing rules that govern ATVs, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles on public lands.

ORVers raise $25,000 to fight $300 fine

Created by Laurel Hagen on December 12, 2007

ORV groups have raised $25,000 to fund the court costs of a man who was ticketed for purposely leading a group of 9 ATVs into a Wilderness Study Area. The Canaan Mountain area, part of the Zion-Mojave proposed BLM wilderness in southwestern Utah's canyon country, has been closed to motor vehicles since 1980. However, some ORVers apparently feel that no one has the right to keep them from driving on anything they consider a road. Not surprisingly, the trail in question is claimed as a county "highway" under RS 2477.

New survey documents ORV problems

Created by Bethanie Walder on December 11, 2007

The Rangers for Responsible Recreation and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility released a new survey of land managers in the Southwestern US documenting off-road vehicle problems on public lands.

Those surveyed articulated the significance of the ORV problem on public lands, the significant impacts to public lands, and even the "atrocious" attitudes of ORV recreationists.  

The restoration debate: fire, floods and road failures

Created by Bethanie Walder on December 7, 2007
The news about flooding in the Pacific Northwest was, unfortunately, all too familiar for the people living there, though the intensity of the storm was particularly bad this time around.  And as officials went out to assess the damage, the news started pouring in about how many roads and bridges were washed away by the storms.

Building a restoration economy, one state at a time

Created by Bethanie Walder on December 5, 2007

Dust storm at ORV park

Created by Laurel Hagen on November 30, 2007
Off-road-vehicle use is often very harmful to desert soils.They take a long time to develop, and are easily disturbed. Intensive ORV use strips the biological crusts that keep sand in place, and cause dust storms and increased erosion that pollute air and water, spread soil disturbance, and cause traffic safety hazards. 

Road maintenance funding debate continues

Created by Bethanie Walder on November 26, 2007

On-the-ground Research on the Benefits of Watershed Restoration

Created by wildlandscpr on November 20, 2007

In the winter of 1995-1996, right on schedule with predicted historical records, the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho experienced a dramatic rain-on-snow event that caused extensive flooding and more than 900 landslides. Old, unstable logging roads were the cause of more than half of the landslides, several of which literally carried homes off the mountains and others which smothered tribal fisheries in the streams below.

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