State Forest Access Update: Your help is needed to open the trails! At every opportunity given to us, attend DEC meetings or write to them to ask for ATV access. See our
UMP tracking page for information on the status of plans that have potential for ATV access. Certain DEC Regions are actively working to make sure land use plans do not include ATV access. Therefore every rider’s participation in the planning process is absolutely essential to the successful inclusion of ATV access to your state public lands. Also see
DEC’s Unit Management Planning Web Site for additional background.
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) administers over 4 million acres (or 13% of the states land mass!) of
Forest Preserve (mainly Adirondack and Catskill Parks) and
reforestation area (DEC land outside the Forest Preserve, about 700,000 acres). You would think that there would be plenty of room for all users of the public's land. But as large as the total land mass of the state, as large as the "public's" holdings, and as large as the OHV user community in the state, public land ATVing and trail motorcycling is limited to only two forest units inaccessible to most residents of the state. The state is perfectly aware of the need for more trail facilities, yet for several reasons that NYSORVA is working to combat (primarily lack of funding and opposition by anti-recreation groups), the state has to date hesitated to adequately open public land for its OHV-riding citizens.
See the DEC's fabled 1993 ATV Position Statement in which the agency concluded that Reforestation Areas (a.k.a. “State Forest”) are the "right place" to establish ATV trails for the public. To date, DEC has not been substantially induced to follow its own suggestions. NYSORVA will continue to encourage the Position Statement's full implementation.
Also note that as of November 2002, a process began to develop a comprehensive statewide ATV Policy. [It has not been promulgated as of this update, December 2003.]
See an informative article by DEC which defines the classifications of state lands under New York Law and DEC policy. It is important to understand which units as classified have the potential of ever legally having ATV access before you expend effort toward lobbying DEC for access on a particular unit. Mainly, you should understand that ATV access cannot be designated on lands classified other than “state forest” or “reforestation,” or in the case of Forest Preserve land, “wild forest” and then only if within the Adirondack Park (Catskill park is entirely off-limits). The article will help in your understanding of these designations.
But if we all speak up and participate in public processes required for developing OHV access in DEC units, we may see the tide slowly turn. An example of this is seen in the
Champion Recreational Easement
for which it has been announced on June 15, 2000 that some of the proposed 150+ miles of OHV trails will be opened by July 1, 2000-- this outcome took strong involvement of riders interested in using this land for OHV trails, and it is an example of how rider input pays off. See the DEC web site for information on its progress. (7/2002 Update: To date only six of the proposed 150 miles have been made available to the public much to the dismay of advocates who worked very hard on this matter, and contrary to the State’s promises and recommendations of the Adirondack Mountain Club, Inc., a paid consultant on the “Champion” project.)
A counterpart agency to DEC is the Office of Park Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP), which administers 260,000 acres. Although it administrators receive many calls from riders, and its officials commiserate with us in our situation, this agency's policy is decidedly anti-OHV that, by regulation, no ATV access will be allowed on any State Park lands, ever. This is in contrast with its policy to allow snowmobile trails to cross its lands, which are funded by the registration fee program that OPRHP administers.
National
Forest Access Update: The “Clinton/Gore Roadless Areas Initiative” announced October 1999 is a threat to access of all forms of recreation on national public lands, and this issue continues to have legs in 2003. See the very comprehensive resources on public lands access issues assembled by
Blue Ribbon Coalition for information about the proposal's impact on the future of OHV recreation in National Forests, and learn how you can help advocate for continued public access to the lands we the people are supposed to own.
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