January 2003
Activists learn about laws, strategies at advocacy skills conference
Forty-five grassroots activists from Washington to Vermont and snow states in between met at Idaho's Bogus Basin Ski Resort outside Boise Oct. 4-6 for the Winter Wildlands Alliance's inaugural Grassroots Advocacy Skills Conference. The event marked the first time advocates for motor-free winter recreation opportunities across the United States met to exchange ideas and learn new ways to represent skiers and snowshoers who are working back home to secure peace and quiet on backcountry and other winter trails on public lands from Washington to Vermont.
The BSA sent five activists to this conference including Cathy Morin, a member of the Wolf Creek Task Force, Leslie Lovejoy and Mark Enser who are both working on the issues in Steamboat, Lynn Buhlig, longtime board member, and Kim Hedberg, the executive director of the BSA. The group returned to Colorado energized and ready to work on the issues.
Crammed into the weekend were presentations on policy and law; communications and marketing; strategies for creating change; and how to participate in the collaboration and mediation process. But as some speakers warned, and as many attendees testified in informal chats throughout the weekend, striking such amicable solutions to such intractable problems doesn't always work.
Kathie Rivers, a Ketchum attorney and WWA Board member who was a skier representative during the Wood River Valley mediation process, said it can be easier to strike compromises when there are vast amounts of land to be divided among rival users. Unfortunately, that option is rapidly disappearing. "In any action, whether it's litigation or collaboration, you have to really cover the bases and get organized," Rivers said of her experiences. "Build clout. Gain political clout. Write letters. Educate officials. Educate managers. Educate the public. You have got to document the conflicts are happening." Referring to the dispute that gave rise to Winter in the Wood River Valley, she said of skiers at the time, "We had lot of political power; we just had not mobilized it in our valley." Now, she said, "Snowmobilers are on the defensive; they're very concerned, and they will engage in the process."
Vera Smith, conservation director of the Colorado Mountain Club, and Lisa Phillips of the Natural Trails and Water Coalition encouraged attendees to monitor user conflicts and resource damage. Smith said that human-powered recreationists are just starting to recognize they have the law on their side and that forest managers who cede more of their forests to machines at the expense of human-powered recreationists do so at their own peril. "What the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management must do, according to the law, is to monitor," said Smith, a former National Park land manager. "Most don't. A lot of this battle is political. It's the way the public views the use of public lands. We need to change the way people think."
Chief among the concerns raised by many skier groups was the failure by the Forest Service in many to comply with specific federal laws that require individual forest to include recreation issues in their forest plans. Another big concern was how local groups can minimize or eliminate the kinds of conflicts that arise when snowmobilers take over traditional ski and snowshoe trails other areas. Liz Close, director of Recreation for the Forest Service's 34 million-acre Intermountain Region, tried to answer these questions and more. Close told attendees the nation's federal forest lands are "shrinking" - in that a finite amount of USFS land is trying to support a growing number of activities, including those like skiing and snowmobiling that conflict with each other. "It's really hard to love a multiple-use agency," she told attendees. "We have to make some really hard choices." Unlike the days when conflicts meant mining-versus-recreation, "What we're facing are conflicts within recreational use." As for brokering competing recreational uses, she acknowledged, "Our agency frankly has not changed very well along with that."
While some National Forest supervisors and district rangers are successfully resolving these growing conflicts, many have a long way to go, Close said, adding: "We're rather ill-equipped to deal with some of the issues we're talking about today." For instance, Close joined those at the conference in debunking the claim - still subscribed to by some forest managers - that snow cover prevents resource damage from snowmobiles. "There's a myth that when there's snow on the ground, there's not resource damage," Close said.
She said conflicts involving motorized use on National Forests "is the number one issue I deal with," particularly as snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles become more powerful, faster, and able to reach places once accessed only by those using their own power. Part of the image of stronger, faster ORVs is driven by the industry that makes the machines, she said.
While Close said snowmobiling and other off-road use "is a legitimate use" of National Forests, controlling them has proven to be a huge challenge. "We frankly know what we're supposed to do," she said, "it's just awfully hard to do it." But as more activists like those attending this conference are armed with laws dealing with these conflicts, they can be expected to hold the Forest Service accountable for doing its job.
"Share your successes," Close told the activists. "And share your techniques. I'm just glad that groups like you care enough to take the time to help make these decisions. Hang in there with us and try to help us make the best decisions we can."