Earlier this month, the Bureau of Land Management released its draft Off-Highway Vehicle Guidance Strategy. The plan should have provided immediate protection to the deserts, canyons, and range lands of the West from the severe and escalating damage caused by dirt bikes, all terrain vehicles, and other off-road vehicles. Sadly, the plan is a huge disappointment, leaving 94 percent of the 264 million acres managed by the BLM essentially open to off-road vehicles.

What You Can Do! Send your comments to the Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM is taking public comments on its guidance until January 3, 2001. To strengthen the plan, the BLM must hear from you. To provide real protection to the public lands managed by the BLM, the agency must incorporate the following management directives in the guidance:

1. Wilderness Study Areas, inventoried roadless areas, and all other wilderness-quality lands must be closed to off-road vehicles.

   The draft Guidance itself acknowledges the need to provide additional protection for Wilderness Study Areas and other special designation lands, but rather than providing management direction that reflects its legal obligation to protect Wilderness Study Areas, the BLM Guidance lays out the following goal: "Provide additional information to the public and agency staff clarifying the BLMs WSA Interim Management Policy." The fact is the BLM has been managing WSAs for 20 years under this policy. After two decades, management staff should be well versed in the agency's responsibility to prevent damage to WSAs. It should recognize that this policy is resulting in damage to WSAs, as detailed in the report "Taken for a Ride: How Off-Road Vehicles Damage the Nation's Wildest Lands" (http://www.wilderness.org/newsroom/orv_121400.htm) and should close WSAs to off-road vehicle use.

2. Outside these wilderness areas, BLM must do more to reign in ORV use.
   1. On all BLM lands, off-road vehicles must stay on routes where the BLM has determined that environmental damage can be minimized.
   2. These authorized routes should be clearly marked with signs indicating they are open to off-road vehicles.
   3. Off-road vehicles should not be allowed on any routes that do not have these open signs.

   On page 6, the draft Guidance states: "The BLM does not have the legal authority to create a default national designation to an 'open unless' or 'closed unless' policy." However, two Executive Orders, from Presidents Nixon and Carter, make clear the agency is directed to protect its lands from the widespread damage caused by off-road vehicles. Given this legal mandate, the Guidance should clearly lay out the strategy by which the BLM will begin protecting its lands including implementing a policy that ORVs are permitted only on designated routes that are signed "open to ORV use."

3. Off-road vehicles should be allowed only where the BLM can demonstrate it can monitor the impacts of ORVs and enforce rules protecting the land from ORV damage.

For More Information Contact Biodiversity Associates.