Federal lands are managed under a lot of regulations. Typically, in order to make the process doable, the lands are administered according to plans that are prepared on a periodic basis. This is an account of my experience during the Northwest Forest Management Plan that applied to BLM land where we ride our dirt bikes. My work was done during the presidency of the guy that was in office before Bill Clinton and it ended during his second term. Our club had a formal relationship with the BLM that was established a few years prior. It was to manage and use a tract of woods for trail riding and racing.
We were notified of the upcoming Plan. I got on the mailing list right away. We were sent questionnaires and a bunch of other stuff. I read them, discussed them with the club, and replied as needed. Initial draft plans were sent for review. These things are massive and boring to study. One thing I noticed was that industry and the environmental nuts somehow got their agendas into the plan before all of the rest of us. The specific comments I had during the initial stages were to keep us there as forest users. We were mentioned as users in subsequent drafts.
The material sent by the BLM for review got more detailed. It started to mention specific trails and other details. Lots of environmental documents were sent, too. The environmental stuff needed to be read extremely closely. Some restrictions were and are totally ridiculous. One was to restrict activities within a considerable distance of the coast if there was a potential for Marbled Murrelet nesting. No murrelets needed to be found in the area. This area was along the entire Oregon coast as far as 50 miles from the ocean. We found we were effective if we were aggressive and vocal about specific items that made no sense. We also piggybacked our use on with powerful users like logging and mining. We said, if those clowns can come in and clearcut the woods what harm will a few bike trails create? This worked real good. How could they be picky with us if we were operating on timber producing land? My tenure doing this was about six or seven years. After this the files were about a foot thick with correspondence and the stack of review documents was about 3 feet high.
What I learned was the only way to effectively work with the BLM is to do it like this. Work within the system. Second, fellow users like the railroad, mining, etc have a lot of power. This can be used to your mutual benefit or it can go the other way. Last, whoever does this needs to be patient, sorta crafty, able to work with people, and have lots of time available for reading. Also, the clubs need to exhibit some degree of patience. The work I did on the forest plan did not give results until it was implemented and this was several years after we gave our initial comments.
