It needs to be a HARD set aside.. perhaps only trials and fire roads too.
NOT what the US does with "national forest"... IE it's pseudo wilderness. They let ranchers use it to raise their cattle and lets companies harvest trees and mine it.
NOT what the US does with "national forest"... IE it's pseudo wilderness. They let ranchers use it to raise their cattle and lets companies harvest trees and mine it.
As we were leaving, he remarked that this is what happens when your country's forest service is part of the Department of Agriculture (tasked with policy on farming, agriculture, food, and using resources economically) instead of the Department of the Interior (housing the National Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service, among others, and tasked with conserving federal land and resources).
It's a real shame that the Forest Service, while doing an okay job maintaining much of the land, is part of a wider branch that is incentivized to promote economic growth and treat resources as things to be used instead of preserved. It just doesn't seem to fit in with that branch of the government.
Borrowing from Wiki:
Land management of (national forests) focuses on conservation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, and recreation. Unlike national parks and other federal lands managed by the National Park Service, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged.
USFS does not exist for pristine preservation of deep wilderness. The goal of the NPS is preservation & low-impact recreation. The goal of the USFS is responsible resource exploitation.
Both goals have their place. We need both organizations. The key then is wise choices in designating the land.
That said, having seen first-hand an example of "low-impact recreation", I felt that the USFS was over-stepping its bounds. There was even a recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office on whether or not the USFS should be moved from Agriculture to Interior[1], the result of which seems to have re-enforced the cultural differences these two departments have had since their founding.
But I'll admit that the case of the RVs and dirt bikes might have been an outlier. I was simply not impressed by what I saw, and I hope that it's not happening much elsewhere in our national forests.
However, a part of me wants to keep the motor enthusiasts around. They obviously cause more damage than I do as a hunter, so while they are tolerated in places I expect I'll also be tolerated.
Before praising that department too much, you might want to visit some BLM land. You might be disappointed. The rule seems to be that locals can do or dump anything they want there, unless it interferes with mineral extraction.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir#Activism_and_controve...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifford_Pinchot#Forestry_policy...
One day I must visit the US and see some of those beautiful and wonderful parks they have :)
Of course, I spend most of my time in the Parks and Wilderness areas.
There are some fantastic Parks here.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_JNendCskyQ/VAddy-E365I/A...
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-xhoVkkVZYIo/VAddychbCvI/A...
They mention them in the article, but not everyone is familiar with them. Wilderness areas are not the same as national parks, though a national park may have wilderness area.
People are generally allowed to hike or ski, but you need a permit to camp and sometimes even a permit just to be there.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Wilderness_Preservatio...
Illegal hunting is also an issue too but that won is harder to handle than legal hunting where too many permits are granted (and granted for too small of an area, wiping out a population in that area).
Over-hunting is also a massive problem for fishing (both inland and open water), we're wiping out whole species of fish.