What do you do when you think it will be more difficult to add millions of additional acres to The Wilderness Preservation System because it already consists of millions of additional acres far, far beyond what was asked for by the environmentalists in the first place? Well, it seems you create a new de facto Wilderness concept to grab more land. Below is a paragraph from the home page rhetoric of Colorado’s “Quiet” Use Coalition, the spearhead of the “Quiet Use Movement”. A quick read explains their target:

“The places sought to escape noise; natural and undeveloped open spaces, forests and wilderness areas, have been recently invaded by an explosive growth of personal motorized recreational vehicles (PMRVs). The negative impacts of these machines take many forms; including pulverization or compaction of plants and soil, soil erosion, weed dispersal, stream siltation, disturbance of wildlife, fragmentation of habitat, exhaust emissions, increased fire risk, increased road and trail maintenance, and the endangerment of other human users with excessive speed. But it is the noise generated by these machines that has come to symbolize all of the negative effects they produce and it is that impact which has rallied citizens to form the Quiet Use Coalition.”

While short on genuine creativity, it does contain many of the arguments that turn up against motorized recreation completely outside the context of noise or sound. Read the middle of the above paragraph and let me know what “increased fire risk” has to do with “Quiet” Use? Do we have particularly noisy fires in Colorado? Is “weed dispersal” because we now have some form of screaming spurge? Of course there is always the critical “soil erosion”, man, the Grand Canyon had to be one noisy hole in the ground for 5 or 6 million years.

Wait, it’s the last sentence that ties it up. Noise is the symbol for the evil of motors and those that recreate with them. Poppycock! “Quiet Use” is nothing more or less than the attempt to create a defacto wilderness designation. Please not in the paragraph the sentence that states; “The places sought to escape noise; natural and undeveloped open spaces, forests and wilderness areas, have been recently invaded by an explosive growth of personal motorized recreational vehicles (PMRVs).

Huh? Motorized vehicles in wilderness areas? Oh I see, it’s a word game, they used a “little w” not a capitol “W”. Yes, continue to mislead anyone going to the web sight that Wilderness is being over run with motorized vehicles. Since “wilderness” does not have a legal definition, it is subjective. So I must agree the I-70 corridor can be a noisy wilderness.

Why be so deceitful? Why use a word the public does not grasp the nuance of rather than a term like backcountry? Well, to mislead, of course.

What is really wanted is three things: first, to repackage the old bias against motorized; second, to generate a new land prescription in addition to roadless, primitive and semi-primitive non-motorized, Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas and anything else you can come up with that is basically anti motorized; third, offer a peace pipe to mountain bikers by way of having a “Wilderness” type designation that allows for mechanized use(never mind in 10 years mountain bikers will get the boot so it can become de facto Wilderness). After all, wouldn’t a lot of motorcycle single track be just dandy if opened to mountain bikes only. I hope IMBA does not buy into this tripe.

That’s what this is all about having millions upon millions of acres of non-motorized is just not good enough, find another reason to stop access to the precious little that is left. If law and regulation do not recognize such bullshit, let’s just force it down the Forest Service’s and BLM’s collective throats. Be aware of this ruse, and challenge it’s validity whenever it comes up in discussion.

The QUC is a spearhead organization of the “Quiet Use Movement” — which is gaining support and national exposure as concerned citizens organize to send this message to our legislators and public land agencies – “We will take action to prevent assault by noise, pollution and environmental devastation while recreating in our national forest and public lands and waterways.”