Adopt-A-Trail
There
is an ever increasing amount of pressure being put on government authorities to
close down our hobby of Four Wheel Driving by various environmental groups
around the world. The more vocal and militant amongst these groups see our
recreation as the enemy of the environment and give no consideration whatsoever
to sustainable recreation and multiuse. If you disagree with them then you are
wrong. Unfortunately we are generally less vocal and less well financed than
these groups and therefore all the good work we do goes largely ignored.
In
many places around the world some form of “Adopt-A-Trail” program is in
place. This program links
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Basically
clubs that have a willing membership choose a “free” trail in their area of
interest to adopt. Once agreed upon the Club liaises with the appropriate local
government body be it BLM, Forestry Service or Department of Natural Resources
to determine how they would like the club to conduct work on the trail and to
arrange strategies for ongoing maintenance. Usually clubs will undertake working
days on the trail once or twice a year with the consultation of the governing
body. It is important to understand that this is purely a volunteer program
which sees
My
Club, The Solihull Society, has adopted Radical Hill as its project trail. Our
club has been officially looking after this trail for 6 years now and
unofficially for longer. During this time we have built up a good working
relationship with the local Forestry Rangers to the point that they recognize us
as responsible users of the area. Significant goodwill is generated through the
relationship to the point that they do not just dismiss us when we want to
discuss land use issues. We recently undertook our yearly work day on the trail
under the supervision of Tyler Kirkpatrick the Back Country Ranger responsible
for the area. The work we completed on the day was fairly basic, i.e. building
some barriers to stop vehicles taking inappropriate bypasses, moving rocks and
repositioning fences that were no longer required. The Ranger appeared genuinely
grateful for our work and assistance.
Talking
with Forest Rangers about Four Wheel Driving and Land Use I was somewhat
surprised to hear that they are not all anti Four Wheelers, but that they
actually want to encourage multiuse of the land. Unfortunately with limited
resources and finances they are sometimes pushed to prioritize and hence
closures are sometimes forced by matters outside of their control. Interestingly
they viewed the “Adopt-A-Trail” program as a benefit for them as they know
that work needs to be done on trails to maintain them and keep them open. With
Four Wheel Drive Clubs chipping in by providing labor and enthusiasm they can
get more work done. In fact they told me that without the
This type of
activity needs to be encouraged by the Four Wheel Drive movement and also needs
more publicity to show that we are putting back into the environment and are
actively trying to make our passion for the outdoors sustainable. Over the past
18 years since statistics have been collected, clubs have averaged 4,471 hours
per year of volunteer work on trails. In 2003 a mammoth 10,338 hours of
volunteer work by Four Wheel drivers was contributed to keeping trails open so
all of us can have continued access.
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