In <
[email protected]> On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 22:29:57 -0400, scrape at
mindspring dot com <
[email protected]> wrote about: Re: The Bush to call cow tracks & Jeep
trails: Highways ??
>- On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:21:46 -0400, "Ian St. John"
>- <
[email protected]> wrote:
>-
>- >> >One can turn this around and point to the fact that while one RVer may
>- >not
>- >> >do much damage there are a growing number of them and there is not one
>- >inch
>- >> >of wilderness that is not under attack by four wheel drive goons.
>- >> Not "one inch"? Damn. It must be much worse than I thought.
But I think you see Ian St. John's point. The problem here, and it's a huge one, is that one guy
is saying "you enviros" want it all, and another says just as silly, "you ORVes" want it all.
That's BS.
Fact is, some enviros want it all, yes. Fact is, some ORVers want it all, yes. And they are whackos.
Tiny insignificant minority whackos.
To play the game that the above remotely resembles political reality or doability is lose-lose
farce...a silly little schoolyard blame game which prevents meaningful dialogue.
>-
>- >> >There is little queston that OHVs do damage terrain so the question is
>- >one
>- >> >of granting areas for Wilderness and other areas of 'Off Road Trails'.
>- >You
>- >> >cannot allocate all of the land to either.
>- >>
>- >> How much damage do hiking boots do to the terrain? It's all a matter
>- >> of degree, isn't it? If you'll tolerate hiking in the "wilderness",
>- >> your argument is hypocritical at best.
>- >
>- >I'll tolerate limited hiking is the 'protected areas', moderate hiking in
>- >'wilderness areas' and as much walking as you can stand in the cities and
>- >countryside. It *is* a matter of degree and multiple levels of protection.
>- >The point of the thread is that the public wants more Wilderness areas
>- >preserved. Take a hint.
>-
>- So the "damage" that's acceptable to you is coincidentally the amount
>- that you'll be causing? Once again, completely hypocritical. If
>- you're willing to impose "damage quotas", you need to be consistent.
Ok, here's consistent. The goal is use it, but don't use it up, and preserve some, which
biologically means the same thing. Here's yer formula.
----- The General Sustainability Formula: ----- S=E/PC, sustainable if S is larger than one.
Ecosystem vigor ÷ (Pop X per capita ConsumptionWaste stream) -----
http://www.psnw.com/~bashford/e-sust-f.html
What that says is, some land is very fragile and some is very tough. You can bend it, you can dent
it, but don't break it.
If we happen to be thinking big, and the system in question is the world, then S and E/PC is the
source of all of our wealth, all of our jobs, all of our food, etc.
If we happen to be thinking smaller, and the system in question is a forest, then S and E/PC is the
source of all of that wealth, all of those jobs, all of our recreation, visual resources, grazing
rights, etc.
In general, the higher the S, the bigger the pie, the more wealth for each. The more ya dent it, the
less wealth there is per person, the smaller the slice.
That's the bottom line. Beyond that, it doesn't answer a lot of questions, but ya gatta know where
the bottom line is.
>- I've seen some horse trails that were in pretty bad shape.
>- Should horses be banned from the "wilderness"?
Everybody is looking for simple answers to complex problems. And they are simply wrong.
The real question is, how does one manage a complex system with limited funds? In the 80's we saw
USNFS funds slashed, so they closed down all the jeep trails and "obliterated" all the old logging
roads because they could no longer be managed. They shut us out. The simplified the system to match
the funding. Last time I got out of my car in the NF, some private company charged me $3. It was
were my dad as a toddler used to camp all summer for free. That sux. But S=E/PC, sustainable if S is
larger than one pretty much explains why that happened. Simply put, my slice got much smaller. The
pie aint getting no bigger, and it never will.
Another part of the problem is that humans are new to ecosystem management, so we stumble around
like crude robots instead of like fine athletes. It's all we can
Sometime that underfunded crude robot is going to ***** slap people in its attempts to do good.
So the real answer to yer question is, ain't life a *****, ya can't have a perfect world, deal with
it as best ya can. In my opinion, the blame & hate game is a sorry excuse for that. --Doug
