Overview:

Singularly, the most significant and out of control deterioration of public (and now private) lands today is due to the illegal and irresponsible use of personal motorized recreational vehicles..snowmobiles, atvs, dirt bikes, jet skis and motorized hang gliders.

The air pollution emissions from these vehicles is up to 26 times that of the standard american automobile. The muffler on an automobile renders it inaudible at 150 feet. Dirt bikes are audible at 2 and 1/2 miles. The stench from these vehicles has rendered the air quality in Yankee Boy Basin above Ouray...one of the most famous tourist attractions in the area... unbreathable...especially to an EI. The goon-level tearing up of untrammeled public lands with tire tracks, wheeleys and donuts is epidemic. These are singularly the most destructive and unenforceable vehicles given into the hands of the most irresponsible and destructive segment of the population and turned out without enforcement, licensing or regulation on the most vulnerable, valuable and pristine of our public lands. In the words of one BLM district manager...whispered in fear, but pressing to be expressed...two years ago came the words..." We now see that we should have never let this thing get started in the first place."

The question is what to do about it now. In any three month span of time between visits to a public lands site visible deterioration and fresh tracking will be present...everywhere. Vehicle manufacturers, targeting the slob market portray battling the natural environment as the enemy and conquering it with a $5,000 machine. Goons do what the media makes them think is cool. The result is singularly the most criminal failure of public lands management in american history...rivaling the permission to deforest all the mining basins for the silver industry and graze into extinction all the tall native grasses (coincident with the government financed irradication of the mountain buffalo, mountain lion, grizzly bear and timber wolf). At least thes hallmarks of mismanagement carried with them the (dubious) promise of industry...ORVs are missing even that...a slob sport for a slob class...destruction simply for the sake of destruction itself.

There is no such thing as the responsible operation of an irresponsible vehicle.

Immediate strategy is needed to first curtail this epidemic...and then irradicate the already existent damages.

The Solutions:

Reward System: Critical to the success of curtailment of this destruction is enlistment and empowerment of the responsible public in prohibiting the irresponsible vehicle users their implied rights to public asset destruction. Colorado Division of Wildlife, through their Operation Game Thief has employed exactly this strategy to great success by publishing and offering a reward (often in the $1,000 range) to anyone reporting a poacher who is successfully apprehended and prosecuted. This kind of reward needs to be implemented by the Bureau of Land Management immediatly...along with cellphone/ land line or email reporting numbers for arrests.

Documentation and evidence along with identification of violators is now immensely enabled with digital video camera popularity. A state required licensing program requiring large letter/number licenses visible from distances of one to five hundred yards in all four directions from every one of these vehicles is a must, making video footage of the vehicle and operator easy and clear...to be submitted as court evidence for prosecution. Required manuracturer customizing of each off road vehicle tire sold would be an excellent tracking and identifying enablement providing implicit assurance these goons stay roadbound, knowing that every track they leave carries the identifying key signature to that vehicle, which is registered by law, by tire and vehicle dealers on sale of the vehicle and state file recorded for tracking, identification and prosecution.

At $1,000 a pop and with the prospect of not having to physically confront a motor goon in the field (most are armed and violent...and usually drunk), a $500 video camera becomes a lucrative investment for an irate responsible citizen fed up with this failure in our system of governance and craving an effective method of personal action to stop this insanity...since the 15 years of negotiation listening to the ORV organization crowds crow about promoting responsible use only to watch the destruction escalate to epidemic proportions has certainly not.

Strong penalty laws regarding taking one of these vehicles off a mapped and approved roadway need enactment. This is certainly a felony offense, not a misdemeanor...the damages easily reaching the thousands of dollars quickly. Strong incarceration penalties are needed beginning with the first offense (recommended mandatory 30 day minimum) and increasing as infractions accumulate...to the "third strike you're out" principle applied to drugs (certainly ORVs are more dangerous than marijuana) at which level the offender is incarcerated for life for crimes against society.

Trail Head Strategy- Augmenting the responsible public reward system, which would produce instantaneous, buy very short term presences to bolster law enforcement, the EI Land Steward medium term occupancies would provide a further level of surveillance, deterrent presence and enforcement documentation and reporting. Here, the location of Land Steward facilities (ie off-grid micros) would probably best be applied in strategy similar to that used with locale selection and irradication systems for invasive species:

(a) Pristine and exceptional (or vulnerable) locales as yet primarily undamaged but invaded or at risk are selected in priority with criterion discussed at length elsewhere in this program. These exceptional areas....invariably already being tracked or having tracking approaching...are occupied by a Land Steward presence...preferably at the furthest tracked accessible trailhead site...which is invariably well beyond any public lands authorized roadways as documented on official mapping.

(b) Deterrent to further tracking is produced by the Land Steward presence, video docuentation of offenders and prosecution (which won't take long to have effect as the project threat echoes through the organizations of users and abusers). That presence is repeated from time to time in coordination with liter clean up and invasive species repair...all of these stem from the tracking and invariably coincide on every single site.

(c) First tracking beyond the trailhead site is irradicated. Simple trail/track erasure techniques are already in use. With small amounts of daily diligence, the illegal trail extensions beyond the Land Steward Occupancy Site are irradicated. This in itself is a powerful deterrent. The "followers" will not follow a "primary abuser" when that area is not already tracked by the first abuser. This leaves only the "primary abusers" to be dealt with. That happens through apprehension and stiff prosecution...facilitated by not readily visible Land Steward locations, which are a natural outgrowth of the Occupancy Site selection which includes surveillance surprise and disguise strategy and criterion.

(d) Once the extended illegal tracking is restored beyond the Land Steward Occupancy Location, gating prohibiting any vehicle travel (except for the Steward) is erected and signed at the end of the last map-authorized and documented road location...leaving the illegally, but by now well traveled interstitial roading system (with its invariable tendrils) "captured" between the gate (beyond which may be a Land Steward) and the Land Steward site. This produces an irradication and enforcement zone of superior strategic advantage. At this point, sanity and the land begin to win.

(e) To facilitate responsible and indigenous rights use to free camping and pedestrian access to the terrane, at the gate point, free camping facilities are created and permitted in accordance with other portions of this program discussed elsewhere. This "gives" the public something, instead of the now constant pattern of closure and curtailment in which the responsible and indigenous rights are lost to the abuses of the irresponsible. These are not developed or feed campsites. They are primitive free-camping sites...as they will remain in perpetuity...providing responsible access to the pristine terrane (especially if a free camping permit system in lieu of donated labor is enacted). It also bolsters a responsible public presence as deterrent.

(f) In time, a locale management plan is emplaced deciding how much of the illegal roadways to irradicate, relocation of the Land Steward site, etc. It may be that maintaining the singular Steward presence within the area in perpetuity would provide not only an attractor mechanism for the Program, but also an extremely effective enforcement and vigilance factor. A violator approaches the gate, witnesses restored lands and is warned there is a vigilant protective presence somewhere beyond. That works.