FEDERATION OF WESTERN OUTDOOR CLUBS

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CONTROLLING DEGRADING ORV USE 

The increase in off-road vehicle use is causing a great deal of environmental degradation in the western states. More than 800,000 all terrain vehicles were sold last year, and the number is expected to increase. Use of such vehicles can cause a wide variety of adverse impacts on the environment. These vehicles damage the soil and vegetation; they fragment habitat; they damage wetlands and water resources; they pose a risk of fire danger; and they degrade air quality. Nonmotorized types of recreation also suffer from these effects.

Stronger controls over ORV use are needed on public lands. These could include licensing all vehicles of this kind, training those who use ORVs, and setting standards that would encourage greater responsibility among those who advertise and sell such vehicles. On public lands ORVs should be confined to designated roads and routes or other locations which will not contribute to or cause the adverse environmental impacts listed above. Areas already degraded by ORV use should be restored.

The Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs supports strong controls on the use of off-road vehicles, particularly on public lands.

Please contact the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service in your state and ask that such controls be instituted or strengthened.