Muddy reasons for an $8 million cheque to OHV users
By Lethbridge Herald on March 14, 2023.
LORNE FITCH
The minister of Forestry, Parks and Tourism rolled up recently on a mud-spitting off-highway vehicle (OHV) to announce an eight-million-dollar bribe to the motorized recreation set. It was pure theatre—partly comedy, mostly tragedy.
It’s a tragedy because to provide tax dollars to build new OHV trails and increase traffic on others flies in the face of biological and ecological realities and panders to a small group of motorized recreational users.
OHV trails already exceed the ecological threshold to maintain trout populations and several wildlife species by two to eight times, especially throughout the Eastern Slopes. Expanding OHV trails and encouraging even more OHV traffic will put at serious risk much of the biodiversity that attracts tourism, supports hunting and fishing, and is an indicator of responsible resource management. More trails and more use adds to water quality issues and exacerbates flood risk for downstream communities in concert with other land uses like logging.
The pronouncements of OHV trail development as boosting the economy, good for tourism, and helping to “protect wild spaces” are a suspension of reality, blatant spin-doctoring to disguise the dark side of the “sport.” The explanations are a far cry from the realm of rational and a long-distance phone call from believable.
If there really is a sincere wish to “protect wild spaces” it might start with land use plans that are informed by science and are vetted through an extensive public engagement process. These plans would consider the additive effects of industry, agriculture, and recreation on the ability of the land to absorb these activities and still provide a quality water supply, maintain fish and wildlife species (including the recovery of ones now designated “at risk”), and ensure a high degree of ecological integrity for future Albertans.
Those plans would show that we should be spending these hand-outs on the restoration of the human footprint, not increasing it. In particular most of the money would be better spent closing many OHV trails and restoring them so they don’t continue to bleed sediment into streams every time it rains.
“Improving” OHV trails, especially with bridges, in the hope that this will correct many of the problems, is worshipping at the temple of wishful thinking. There is no evidence, from the limited amount of previous OHV trail work that these “solutions” actually work.
No monitoring has been done to indicate these “fixes” limit erosion, stop users from fording streams rather than using bridges, or deal with the sheer amount of traffic that fragments wildlife habitat and limits wildlife use.
We have, at our disposal, strong, robust science to guide us on the question of OHV use—where, when, and how much. Unfortunately, this announcement turns its back on the science.
It would appear that many in the OHV community are anti-science and this government is anti-planning.
If you say you care about the environment and yet you want more muddy trails to entertain yourselves, this ignores the evidence of harm from too much OHV use. Maybe it signals you never had any values at all and this is simply entirely self-serving.
Any government with a mandate for environmental stewardship that writes a cheque to a small segment of recreational uses in spite of the evidence of existing harm Is not working in the broader public interest.
Consultation goes far beyond discussing expansion of logging with timber companies, coal development with foreign miners, and increasing OHV trails with one user group. A government that makes secretive deals with no transparency, ignores land use plans, dismisses the science, and avoids public consultation is not a steward of our treasured natural resources. It’s a government that gives out a lot of cheques but has no sense of balances.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Alberta Fish and Wildlife Biologist, and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary.
16-15
Another anti government diatribe by the “I have mine” now go away crowd.
Except the Professor is right.
You want to see wildlife? – Frigging walk/hike.
And stop equating burning gas and making noise with anything else but what it is: Pollution and self-obsessed consumption while destroying habitat to satisfy a ridiculous abuse of Wild Space.
thank you
Agreed…this wrong-minded abuse by OHV users, is another reminder of some of our society who are bloated and disrespectful, a ‘me, me, me’ society.
nothing to do with “i have mine.” it has everything to do with preserving the natural world. that is not a merely “mine” concern, it is about honouring and respecting and thus preserving that which, by nature – divine right, even – belongs to everyone and all life that depends on healthy habitats. surely one is not so callous and so full of selfish superiority that everything is about oneself and one’s fancies.
thanks for another enlightening letter, lorne. it is time to run roughshod over mindless self indulgences that come at the expense of the health and the inhabitants of our natural world.
Strong robust science? That is debatable. To enjoy the mountains on an ATV is not destroying it. Logging , mining, trail riding may affect the environment . Recovery is remarkable though. Crowsnest pass coal mining is a good example. Many places have little to no evidence of mining activity. Consider the incredible erosion of one good rain event. Run off, erosion, trees flattened, it all recovers. A few atv trails are minimal compared to that.
with such reasoning, you would then support having a powerful entity run you and yours off your land, killing the most of you all, in order to have what they want. all good because when they are done, the few that survived can return.
The negative impacts of human activity in drainage basins stemming from land-cover change and, yes, off-road vehicle use on water quality and biodiversity, and on the increased frequency and severity of flood events is well understood and widely accepted by scientists and resource managers. There is no debate, period. Sorry, but anyone who questions the science on this simply doesn’t know what they are talking about.
hard to imagine your entry was a quick “neg” 1. thank you for schooling old school and the other selfish minded.