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| Recreational Access and Conservation - News and Information | Short Cuts | ||||
| | Introduction | News | Notices | Activities | | Education | Forums | Columns | Links | Edited by: John Stewart |
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On Thursday May 11, the Utah Shared Access Alliance, Utah’s largest public lands access organization, made public the results of a poll taken April 12 and 13 by Public Opinion Strategies, Inc., a polling firm located in Alexandria, Virginia. 400 Utahn’s were polled, giving a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.
Among key findings in the poll are refutations of assertions made by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and others about Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) use on public lands and strong support for counties in their struggle to defend their roads.
“This poll, taken of the general public in Utah, provides important insight into OHV recreation on federally-managed land in Utah and the extent to which Utahn’s engage in it and support it,” said Brian Hawthorne, the groups Executive Director. “It also directly refutes several of the key assertions SUWA has been making about OHV recreation.”
Asked why take a poll at this time, Hawthorne said “OHV recreation has been under a coordinated, national attack for years. This statewide poll is part of a response to say ‘wait a minute, tell the truth about OHV use’”
The poll results indicate that OHV use is a popular activity that people enjoy for a variety of reasons. An overwhelming 91% of respondents believe that roads and trails that have historically been open to the public should remain open. They support improving and maintaining roads to provide more recreation opportunities and a majority feel that their access to their lands is the same or less than it was five years ago. Finally, very large majorities say that motorized recreation is an important family activity, that it allows them to get to places and enjoy them that they would not otherwise be able to and that it allows them to better enjoy nature.
He stressed that the debate over motorized access to public lands in Utah will have a direct effect on a majority of Utahn’s. 27% reported that they used these lands “a lot” and 38% said they used them “some” for a total of 64%. Only 21% said that they didn’t use these lands very often and only 13% said they never used them.
Hawthorne said, “These results also show Utahn’s strongly support the efforts of Utah’s rural county commissions to protect RS 2477 rights-of-way. We asked which level of government, local, state or federal should decide which roads and trails over public lands should be open. Half of Utahns said that they thought the county commissions in the counties in which the lands are located should decide. A third thought it should be the state government. Only 10% thought it should be the federal government.” It also suggests overwhelming public support for recent efforts of Governor Leavitt to obtain quiet title to those roads.
Hawthorne said “We also wanted to test the validity of a couple of the fundamental assertions made by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in their “report” on Off Highway Vehicle use in Utah. In the Executive Summary they make several statements attributed to a Montana Department of Fish and Wildlife and Parks Department opinion survey asserting that the majority of public lands recreational users prefer non motorized forms of access and “as many as 98% of public lands users don’t drive ORV’s”. We decided to see how wrong they were so we asked the question: “Do you use a motorized vehicle when you travel to Utah’s federal lands or when you use the land for recreation?” A whopping 86%, an overwhelming majority, said yes they did. We asked the 86% who said that they used motorized access or enjoyed motorized recreation what kinds of vehicles they used. Two thirds of the people used a truck or four-wheel drive, 24% use an ATV and 16% use a motorcycle. All are an “ORV” under SUWA’s definition. That is a long, long way from the “as many as 98% of public land users” who SUWA claims “don’t drive ORV’s.”
Hawthorne added, “We are going to hold SUWA accountable in this debate. We are not going to allow anti-access organizations to lie about OHV users.”
The Utah Shared Access Alliance is a Utah non-profit organization dedicated to defending equality of shared access, educating the public and conserving our public lands for the benefit of all.
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BRIAN HAWTHORNE |
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