Recreation

Loggers, Mountain Bikers and a Tiki Bar: Vermont’s New Working Landscape

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Heath Bunnell, a master logger and avid mountain biker, was careful to plan a timber harvest that would preserve the integrity of the Dashney trails near the base of Burke Mountain. Photo Credit: Erica Houskeeper

Thanks to Forest Business Network for this story on People Getting Along… It’s interesting to think about the outlets that provide info on People Getting Along (usually local?) compared to say, national outlets, and how that might form people’s opinions of How Bad Things Are for the environment..

“Forests and tourists can have a symbiotic relationship here in Vermont,”says Langlais. “Whether it’s board feet, miles of smiles, or both, our recreation and forest products economies depend on forests staying as unfragmented, non-parcelized blocks of healthy forest– that’s the point of common interest.”

Managing forests for recreation

The Dashney trails near the base of Burke Mountain, including Trillium and Moose Alley, were part of an active timber harvest by HB Logging over the past few years. Owner Heath Bunnell, a master logger and avid mountain biker, was careful to plan a harvest that would preserve the integrity of the trails. “We harvest in the winter, when the ground is frozen,” said Bunnell, “so it can be hard to know where the trails are running. It’s important to get everyone together in advance to create a clear plan.” Bunnell met with a forester and representatives of the Kingdom Trails Association to walk through the area and develop a plan that laid out very specific routes for the logging equipment. “We try to cross the trail once at a ninety degree angle instead of crossing at multiple points,” said Bunnell. “It makes clean up easier and lessens the impact on the trail. Aesthetically, people don’t want to see a big mess in the forest. They want clear view lines and clean trails.” For the Dashney area harvest, Bunnell cleared a few small areas off the trail where slash was deposited to create wildlife habitat for songbirds, grouse and small mammals. “The fact is, we live in an area where tourism is the number one business,” said Bunnell, “so we have to manage the forests here with that in mind.”

Part of our DNA

And yet, the first business visitors see driving into East Burke is the Timber Resource Group (TRG) on Route 114, a concentration yard where logs are aggregated throughout the winter for eventual transport to mills. As mountain biking season starts up in the spring, Craig Owen, manager of TRG, estimates the yard holds 2.6 million board feet, all of which will be moved out by the end of June by log haulers like Ben Morrison of Morrison Trucking. Further out of town, retired logger Oscar Perkins meticulously stacks 100 cords of firewood into neat walls visible from the road, one of which encompasses an old bike painted bright red. Oscar’s daughter, Heidi, is the organizer of Rasputitsa, a 40 mile mountain bike race held every April in East Burke. “You can’t separate the logging from the biking community,” says Langlais. “The forests are part of our DNA here. We work where we play and play where we work.”

In their own words, tech industry goes political, too

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We recently had a discussion about the recreation industry going political (especially with regard to national monuments), and there have also been posts about the changing economics of rural communities.  Here’s an op-ed from some high-tech entrepreneurs about why they want to be near public lands and about getting involved in their management.

“Public lands provide inspiration for innovation within our companies, they provide the backdrop for employee wellness and they serve as a competitive advantage in our ability to attract and retain talent.”

“Access to open spaces and public lands is what makes our businesses tick. They are not just a means by which we refuel, but are also providing a foundation of solid work culture, creativity, innovative thinking and a spirit of entrepreneurship. There are real benefits that ripple throughout our business model that depend on public lands and our access to vast wild places.”

“There is real data and an undeniable economic argument behind fighting for policies such as full funding and permanent reauthorization for the bipartisan Land and Water Conservation Fund, standing up against the rollback of protections for our national monuments and other public lands, and saving public lands at the doorstep of Yellowstone from industrial-scale gold mining. Montanans should have the right and the opportunity for intentional public engagement in the decisions that are made about our public lands. And now, it’s more important than ever for technology companies like ours, and others, to get engaged.”

My suspicion has been a little more simple-minded.  When you can start a company that ships its products through the internet, and you can locate your business wherever you want, why wouldn’t you go where you want to be?  And then you want to keep it that way.

Paths Out of the Recreation Crisis- Summary by Rebecca Watson

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Thanks to Rebecca Watson for sharing her powerpoint in the comments here. Travis and I started a discussion there, but feel free to comment here as well. As usual, I’m curious about whether folks in other states have other takes and other ideas that have worked.

It is definitely worth reading in its entirety, but I extracted  a few of the ideas for this post. Walt Hecox, from Colorado College, had these supply and demand ideas,

Colorado College Economics Professor, Walt Hecox, who has led the Colorado College’s Annual Conservation Poll, got us started with some tough choices. He challenged us by saying you can:
• Grow the supply of recreational resources – for example, corporate adopt-a-trail/
road or greater roles for concessionaires
• Slow/limit the demand for those resources – limit visitors, auction access, charge for use.

Susan Daggett and Peter Metcalf argued that we should steer recreational users to places that have the hardened infrastructure to take the abuse of increased numbers.
• Focus some recreational use in urban areas. (Susan Daggett)
• Consider the 14’ers in Colorado as “urban interface” and build the infrastructure—a parking lots, permanent toilets, hardened trails—to handle the crowds. (Peter
Metcalf)

But where can the money come from?
1) Pay to Play
• California’s “green tag” OHV fee program is one successful model to raise funds from users.
• USFS/NPS charge parking fees and entrance fees at certain popular places.
• The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 (FLREA) fee program was started in the Bush Administration and Lynn Scarlett and I both advocated to Congress to
let FS/Interior agencies collect fees at developed locations and plow the $$ back into those areas, but…
• Some object and have sued (“I already pay taxes” or “that place is an exception to FLREA”).
• Although NPS collects the most $$, in 2015 OIG faulted NPS for not using the authority as much as it could.
• This year Interior Secretary Zinke was blasted for seeking big fee increases at 17 popular parks under this authority.
• FLREA authority was set to expire in 2016, but it was extended into FY 2017 and this year the Forest Service budget asked for permanent reauthorization.

(2) Excise Taxes

The Hook & Bullet component of outdoor recreation has been taxing the equipment they use in their recreation for many decades. In 1930 Pittman Robinson was enacted to tax hunting equipment and in 1952 Dingell Johnson to tax fishing equipment. This money goes back to the State Game & Fish agencies for habitat acquisition and management for game species. Over the years – billions of $$. This year, Secretary Zinke highlighted $1 billion from this tax for state wildlife programs.

• Some argue that other members of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) should do likewise – tax those $10,000 mountain bikes, $50 backpacks, tents and skis.
• Since 1999, OIA has opposed this arguing that since much of their product is imported they already pay excise taxes into the General Treasury and shouldn’t be asked to pay more. This position may change as the industry plays a larger role in GDP.

(3) Federal Legislation

Federal Legislation can bring focus and funding to outdoor recreation management.
• 2018 “National Trails Stewardship Act” directs USFS to publish a national strategy to strengthen role of volunteers to “augment and support capabilities of federal
employees.”
• Recently Secretary Zinke and Senator Alexander introduced a “National Park Restoration Act” – “all energy” additional revenue towards NPS infrastructure needs.
• “State Wildlife Action Plans” to conserve nongame habitat – OIA/AWFA say use energy royalties to fund this need.
• Fully appropriate Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) ($900 million per year)
• Enacted in 1964; uses offshore O&G royalties to meet the annual appropriated amount.
• 2 components:
• State grants to acquire/develop recreational lands
• Fed side – acquire lands and waters
• Note neither is focused on maintenance/stewardship of the lands
• Full appropriation only happened twice in 49 years – most $$ flows into General Treasury and the annual appropriation is well below $900 million. Up for
reauthorization in 2018. FY 2018 Appropriation Bill funds LWCF at $425.
• “Recreation Not Red Tape” – help outfitters and promote private section volunteers
• “Outdoor Economy Act” – Interior Recreation FACA; FS already has a recreation FACA

Volunteer Stewardship:

Through our dialog in Colorado and our conversations in DC, VOC (Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado)  has identified some concrete steps that could enhance the role of volunteer stewardship:
• Nationwide stewardship network similar to the youth-focused Corps Network
• Volunteer offices in FS/BLM field offices – volunteers helping to coordinate stewards for the work inside the agencies
• VOC/USFS share the cost of the volunteer coordinator
• Work standards/training for trail work, water restoration
• Outdoor Stewardship Institute (OSI) training certificate – quality assurance for the land manager – volunteers trained in the work and safety protocols
• New funding model for stewardship work – across a landscape and multiple years of funding (with metrics) directed to make a meaningful impact rather than year-by year piecemeal work that may not be adequate to the need.

Scary-High Increases in Visitors to the Yellowstone Region

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A line of tourists snakes past Grand Prismatic Spring on Sunday in Yellowstone. Results from a survey conducted last year found that crowding was one of the biggest issues tourists had when visiting the park.
BRETT FRENCH, Billings Gazette Staff

I just returned from a visit to Yellowstone and environs. My observation was that in mid-May the Park was a great deal more crowded than only 10 or so years ago (turns out my experiences and Park Service data are similar). There are at least three kinds of reasons for any open place to become more crowded:

A) People moving near forests because they like to recreate (increasing population in the local area)- therefore more use. This can lead to more crowding, on trails and on the roads in town, and ultimately being priced out of local real estate. Think Bend, Oregon, and so many others. But what can you do?

B) People who weekend or day trip in national forests from nearby urban or rural areas (what I’d call semilocal: 1-3 hours). As these areas grow in population, for whatever reason so does the use.

C) People attracted from other parts of the country, and the world to “location destinations” (some people would like their area to become one in the future, and would like to Parkify or Monumentize, others fear crowding and being priced out beyond the inevitable A and B.

The difference between C, and A and B, is that C is the product of active campaigns to get more folks to visit and spend more money. A’s, as they move into the community, may also contribute and volunteer on their local forest. Even frequent B’s often have special relationships with certain forests. Now I’m not seeing a stark difference, more of a continuum, but the Yellowstone Region has more C than other places I visit. When someone says “we want to be a world-class destination”, I’ll ask “who is “we”?” I like things the way they are, or with fewer people than now.

Here’s a few quotes from this newspaper article in Montana Untamed:

When asked if national parks and Yellowstone in specific are suffering from the success of national advertising campaigns encouraging visitation, Warthin said the promotions may have raised the profile of Yellowstone nationally and internationally, providing an opportunity to pass on messages about the “heavy responsibility we all have” to protect the park’s unique natural resources by being good stewards of the landscape and its wildlife.

The study noted that the number of tour buses visiting the park has doubled since 2010. “The West Entrance, already the park’s busiest by more than double the volume of any other gate, saw a 21 percent increase in visitation over 2014. From early June through late September, traffic backups at this entrance led to gridlock on four or more days a week in the town of West Yellowstone. Once through this entrance, stop-and-go traffic often continued inside the park for 11 miles to the Madison Junction, with driving times through this corridor consistently reported at two hours.”

According to this Billings Gazette newspaper article, there has been a 50% increase in visitation in Yellowstone since 2000, and the Gallatin has increased 39% in the visitation between 2008 and 2013.

Here’s a quote from the article that summarizes the problem:

With more active people crowded into one wild space, what will the effects be on wildlife, the land and its waters? At what point does selling, building upon and using the resource compromise the very wildlands that first enticed everyone to the region? And how can so many people with such different ideas of playing in those places ever come to an agreement on controlling or even reducing use?

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Some thoughts.. with regard to the local (rafting, ziplining, etc.) businesses that depend on visitors.. is that also “corporate greed” that has “corrupted” local officials in the framing we sometimes hear about other forest uses? Or just folks who are trying to make a living and their elected representatives? How can you balance the commercial and the individual uses if there is an environmental “ceiling” for recreation? And most mystifyingly, how can some of the many (many, many!) $ people are spending be channeled back into the Forests to help support and protect them (Parks have many mechanisms)?

National Forest Foundation Kicks Off “Summer of Trails” Campaign

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Kicking off a summer-long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the National Trails System Act, the National Forest Foundation (NFF), today, announced its “Summer of Trails” campaign. Summer of Trails is a five-month long campaign to raise awareness and funds for maintaining and improving trails across America’s National Forests and Grasslands. The National Forests and Grasslands host the largest trail system in the country, with more than 158,000 miles of trails—including the iconic Pacific Crest, Appalachian and Continental Divide Trails and shorter trails beloved by communities from Alaska to Florida.

The Forest Service has struggled to maintain this vast trail system. Budgetary constraints, driven largely by ever-increasing wildfire-fighting costs, have hampered the agency’s maintenance efforts and have led to a significant trail-maintenance backlog. In 2016, Congress passed the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act, directing the Forest Service to improve its trail maintenance, but the bill provided no additional trail funding to the agency.

The Summer of Trails goal is simple: improve conditions on the National Forest’s incredible trail system. By educating Americans about National Forest trails, and by capitalizing on the 50th Anniversary of the legislation that established America’s world-class system of National Scenic and Historic Trails, the NFF hopes to turn the love that Americans have for their trails into a source of funds to improve trails in each of the nine Forest Service regions.

The NFF hopes to raise $1 million for trail maintenance and improvement across the National Forest System through a crowd-funding campaign. The NFF will invest the funds in local conservation organizations through a competitive grant program. These groups will then use the grants to help maintain and repair National Forest trails across the country. The NFF’s $500,000 crowd-funding goal will be matched with an additional $500,000 by the U.S. Forest Service. The NFF plans to award grants to local conservation groups to begin work improving America’s trails in 2019..

This is from the CrowdRise crowd funding site here:

It’s an ambitious goal, but with your help, we can make a real difference for our trails in 2018. For the price of a post-hike beer or a bottle of Gatorade, you can help us reach our goal.

Think back to the last time you hit up a trail on your local National Forest. Did you climb to a shaded overlook? Did you beat your friend to the top? Did you just amble along and enjoy the hike? What are these memories worth? $5? $10? $50? $100? The campaign runs through the end of September, 2018, so donate every month. Every bit helps!

If you find this campaign inspiring, share it with your trail-loving friends and family. Challenge them to give. Set a goal for your hiking group, maybe $1 for every trail mile you tackle in June. The Forest Service estimates that 84 million people use these trails every year. Imagine how much we could help if every person gave just one dollar!

Which comes first, the NEPA or the ESA (process)?

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My experience was generally that the consulting agencies wanted to have the last word. That is that they didn’t want to consult on anything unless it was the final decision by the Forest Service. The expectation was that the FS would just incorporate any needed changes that resulted from the consultation process. I wondered if the public needed be involved in these changes in the decision, but I didn’t think NEPA would apply because any changes required by ESA would further mitigate adverse impacts and/or be non-discretionary.

The court’s recent opinion in Bark v. Northrop discusses this part of the NEPA process. It involves a proposal to build the Timberline Ski Area Mountain Bike Trails and Skills Park on the Mt. Hood National Forest. As approved, the project is a chairlift-assisted mountain biking development with seventeen miles of bike trails and a small skills park within an area designated for managed recreation.

It turns out that after consulting with NMFS on the project’s effects on the Lower Columbia River steelhead the Forest Service issued a New Information Report (“NIR”) and concluded that NMFS’s discussion of the Project’s effects was consistent with the effects considered and disclosed in the project EA. (This actually happened twice, and the Forest Service made the point that the second set of terms and conditions were actually more protective so that impacts had been decreased.)

The court agreed that no supplemental NEPA analysis was necessary because “the mere fact that NMFS found likely adverse effects does not trigger further NEPA analysis unless NMFS’s finding implicates impacts that could significantly affect the environment in a manner not already considered by the Forest Service.”  The effects were minor, and the difference in effects was minor.  (The court reached a similar conclusion for new information about the western bumblebee, a FS-designated sensitive species.)

The Forest Service has little guidance on how to make determinations in accordance with NEPA regarding the significance of new information, never mind how that interfaces with ESA. “NIRs” are not a “thing” recognized in the agency NEPA directives. But the FS got it right this time.

Paying to Play on the Pisgah (and Coconino)

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Patrick Scott, Pisgah District trail program manager in the Pisgah National Forest, walks on the Long Branch trail December 5, 2017. Annual visitation reaches 4.6 million a year, leaving parking lots overflowing with vehicles and trails rutted and worn. (Photo: Angela Wilhelm/[email protected])

Originally I was thinking that “pay to play” generally hasn’t been working with the Forest Service. Summarized..FLREA, RACs that aren’t working for various reasons, lawsuits and so on. So there is a gap between the people who want to pay (and don’t necessarily have a place to contribute), the different states’ approaches to funding outdoor activities (hunting, ATV permits, etc.), folks who think the feds should fund it all, and making progress on getting needed funding for National Forest recreation.

Then I ran across this storyon the National Forests of North Carolina, which caused me to rethink the question and ask “how much local/regional variation in this? Who has been successful with fees?”. So members of the NCFP community, please add your own observations..

The Tsali Recreation Area, a vast network of hiking and mountain biking trails in the Nantahala National Forest, has had user-specific fees since the late 1990s, said Logan Free, developed recreation program manager for the U.S. Forest Service.

The campground is $15 per night and the Tsali Trail Complex is $2 per day per mountain biker and equestrian. The trails are open to hikers, but they are not required to pay the fee. The trails have a schedule that split the mountain bike and equestrian use between different days.

The bulk – 95 percent – of collected fees stay in the forest locally and the remaining 5 percent goes into a regional fund, Free said. Each district uses fee dollars for maintenance, projects and personnel costs associated with managing and improving recreation fee sites.

Free said the fees can be used for items such as repair, maintenance, and facility enhancement, visitor information and services, signs, law enforcement related to public use and recreation and direct operating or capital costs associated with the recreation fee program.

“Fee collections play an incredibly important role in recreation management for the National Forests in North Carolina,” he said.

Some examples of Tsali projects in 2017 with user fees include replacement of the waterline distribution, removal of 20 old cement picnic tables at the campground and replacement with 20 accessible, recycled-plastic picnic tables, and tree removal from the Tsali trails throughout the year.

Fees are also charged at the Brown Mountain OHV area in the Burke County area of the Pisgah National Forest, said Lisa Jennings, recreation forester for the Grandfather Ranger District.

A trail pass is required to ride dirt bikes, ATVs, and full-size off-road vehicles on the trails. Fees are $5 per day or $30 for a season pass, which are purchased from local vendors. They must be prominently displayed on vehicle at all times while on the trails.

“We are proposing an increase in fees to make sure they stay open for people to enjoy, to $10 per day or $50 per annual pass,” Jennings said. “Use has been growing. We have about 12,000 people per year. We have about 99 percent compliance. People who go there really understand why we have fees – this is so unique.”

Perhaps the time for fees to pay for local recreation upkeep and improvements is having its day.

Other national forests across the country are starting to implement user fees as their visitation continues to grow. Coconino National Forest in Arizona encompasses the mighty mountain bike mecca of Sedona and its breathtaking red rock landscape.

The Red Rock Ranger District uses the Red Rock Pass Program to access certain high-use sites.

The passes are $5 a day, $15 per week or $20 per year. Approximately $800,000 is raised from the fees each year, of which 95 percent is kept locally for recreation, natural resource protection and visitor services, said Brady Smith, Coconino Forest spokesman

“The Insatiable Appetite for People to Come Here”: Interview with Scott Fitzwilliams, White River NF Supervisor

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Glenwood Springs, CO – May 13, 2016: Hanging Lake, as breathtaking a spot as you can find in Colorado’s high country, has been at risk from the crush of visitors who stomp up the trail and walk around — and sometimes in — the lake and its feeder waterfall. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

The Denver Post printed an interview with Scott Fitzwilliams, the White River NF Supervisor last week. Has your local paper done a similar interview with a Forest Supervisor? If so, please link in the comments below. It might give us a different perspective on regional variation in “what’s happening on/challenging” the National Forests.

Here’s a link to the whole story. Needless to say, there’s a lot of ski resort stuff in the interview.

DP: There’s legislation in Congress that would enable the Forest Service to retain a portion of revenue-based fees collected from ski areas on public land. That could be huge for the White River. Fee retention is not a new idea. The 2004 Federal Lands Enhancement Act enabled forests like the White River to retain some recreation fees. How has that worked out for you guys?

S.F.: It’s made all the difference. In this forest we are able to retain about $1.3 million in fees from outfitter guides, Maroon Bells, Vail Pass, campgrounds that are nonconcessioned. Since we have been able to do that with a clear and concise and rather firm direction from Congress that those fees go toward supporting the program that generated the fees, we have been able to invest in things like trails, trailheads and maintenance of that, for example, our outfitters and guides use. Frankly that has been lifesaver for us. If you were to model this fee retention proposal similarly, we have a proven track record that we make good use of fees.

DP: Crowds in the White River forest have led to some innovative management strategies with plans for permitting at hotspots such as Vail Pass, Hanging Lake, Maroon Bells and Conundrum Hot Springs. What are some of the challenges in deploying those kinds of management plans?

S.F.: Resort-based recreation is major part of our niche, but really what shapes this forest is the interstate. It really does. We look to a future where that’s not going to stop no matter how they get here, whether it is light rail or extra lanes. What we are talking about it how we create a scenario where we can get people on the forest, enjoy the forest and maybe in more developed pods or in shorter-duration experiences they can get right off the Interstate 70 corridor. It’s a tough time to do it, but where we have to be in the future is really looking at this I-70 corridor, where we have maybe webs going off into the Roaring Fork Valley and places like that. The insatiable appetite for people to come here is not going to change.

It’s this combination of managing and providing the experience because that’s what we do and it’s super important and if we want support for our public lands. Putting up a sign that reads “Sorry. The park is closed,” or overly restricting people is not the way to get support for conservation of public lands or a sustainable environmental ethic. These types of decisions and planning processes I think we will see more of in the future. I’m not sure where the next one is. Some of the more popular fourteeners around the state are being talked about. Again it’s not us outright trying to limit access. It’s more about managing people space and time. These are hard processes. To do it right it takes time.

Post Wildfire Recreation Planning: Waldo Canyon

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We’ve talked before on this blog about fire recovery, restrictions and rebuilding recreation infrastructure post-fire. I thought this was an interesting approach..funding is coming from the State to start a planning process. Here’s a link to the article from the Colorado Springs Gazette:

The Rocky Mountain Field Institute received a $45,000 planning grant for the trail and canyon from Colorado Parks and Wildlife State Trails Program, Peterson, the nonprofit’s executive director, announced Friday.

“Because of the hard work of so many (since the Waldo Canyon fire), we can begin to look toward the future of the entire Waldo Canyon area to provide new opportunities for outdoor recreation and public access,” she said.

The funding comes five months after the U.S. Forest Service reopened the burn area accessible from Rampart Range Road.

The planning process is not as simple as restoring the network of trails that existed before the 2012 fire, Pikes Peak Ranger Oscar Martinez and Peterson explained. The Waldo Canyon Trail in Ute Pass west of Colorado Springs was washed away by flooding, which necessitates a complete trail realignment; the U.S. 24 trailhead has insufficient parking and traffic safety concerns; and people’s expectations of what the canyon can offer recreationally have changed.

“If you looked at the usage before the burn, it was a popular trail, but our use numbers from a recreation standpoint have skyrocketed since,” Martinez said. “And along with that, we’ve gotten a lot of the requests from the public for additional uses. In those five years, those numbers and what people hope we do with that landscape have changed.”

The planning process also offers opportunities for trail expansion, Peterson said.

“We can look at new trailhead locations, new trail designs, dispersed camping locations on Rampart Range Road and possible trail connections to places like Blodgett Peak Open Space,” she said.

Those options would not have existed without the patience to allow the vegetation to regrow, the soil to stabilize and the safety hazards to wane.

“People may say that five and a half years was too long, but these things take time,” Peterson said.

Working with the U.S. Forest Service and Trails and Open Space Coalition, RMFI will use the grant to hire a consultant to facilitate a “Waldo Canyon Roundtable.” Modeled on the Bear Creek Roundtable, the public input process will be designed to draw recreationists, conservationists, land managers and other interested parties into a conversation about public access and resource protection.

The consultant, Peterson explained, will eliminate agency biases and relieve RMFI of the time-consuming components of public engagement.

Also, I thought the following quotes are interesting. The generality (cannot expend resources on planning) is not correct. Folks spend millions on forest plans, for example, travel management plans, project plans and so on. Perhaps this is function of the gap between needs and budget in recreation. Good news.. others are filling in some of the gaps.

As a multiple-use agency, the Forest Service usually cannot expend resources on planning.

“As a federal agency, we get support to build trails. We don’t get the support necessarily, in time or money, to fund the planning piece,” said Martinez. “The grant allows us to spend the energy to ask questions of what do we do here? What do we want to see here? What do we want to build here?”

Getting recreational shooting off of national forests

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That’s at least part of the solution in the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest’s proposal to amend its forest plan to provide “new rules to govern recreational shooting on national forest land.”  The effort is being managed by the Northern Front Range Recreational Sport Shooting Management Partnership, a collaborative effort started in 2013 that also includes Colorado Parks and Wildlife and four counties.

The purpose, from the partnership website:

to develop possible management strategies for this activity on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. This includes not only identifying areas of the Forests that may or may not be suitable for recreational sport shooting, but also identifying locations that would be conducive to building developed shooting ranges open to the public on public lands.

Proposed closures would not apply to lawful hunting activities on National Forest System lands. In addition, proposed closures would likely not take effect until developed shooting ranges were constructed in the vicinity.

The forest supervisor said the partnership’s approach to the safety concerns is to have the counties build shooting ranges to give people more controlled places to shoot, in exchange for closures of Forest Service land.   One of the alternatives being considered is 100% closure of national forest lands.  One member of the public opined that it must be a joke, but I think it’s fair to consider whether recreational shooting is compatible with other uses of a national forest.  At least outside of areas designated for that use (and maybe areas designated for that use should be under a special use permit like other exclusive uses).

Previously discussed on this blog here.