Alberta Land Stewardship
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:17 pm
I figured I would start a fresh thread for this. It kind of stems from the other thread where another club was clearly abusing and destroying the environment.
Introduction:
We have been pretty lucky here in Southern Alberta to have not one, but two huge designated off-road parks. However if you go back a few years, we used to have 3 of them, not only that we had significantly more trail access within the remaining two.
Mud bogging through sensitive muskeg areas, irresponsible destruction of the ground and a general misuse of the areas by a small minority of idiots is what led to the trail and park closures we see today.
Awareness:
One thing we should start to focus on is getting new members aware of what is and is not acceptable on the trail. There are a lot of SRD rules that apply to us on the trail. I figure the most effective way is to give a handout or quick speal on official club runs. We could also post it in the first post of any runs we setup on here.
Public Perception:
This is probably the hardest thing for our club to cope with, harder than most other clubs for sure. We should really start to be more careful about what goes online and who has access to it. One thing that has plagued the larger clubs is scape-goating by the media. A journalist eager to break a controversial story need look no further than a pack of Hummers. Even a few pictures or videos of legal activity could be used against us. As you can see with that other club, people took special interest in getting them fired from their jobs and now the push is on to have them prosecuted by SRD (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development). NOT the kind of interest we want!!
Positive Action:
So far because we are a much smaller club we haven't really been involved in some of the trail restoration or other projects going on in our areas. That doesn't mean we can't start doing something about it though. I think we should take a serious look at joining up with CT4WD or CJA for some of these projects.
Another option is to come up with a plan ourselves and follow through. It could be as simple as a garbage cleanup, or we can get in contact with SRD directly and apply for a permit to go in and repair parts of the trail which are torn up badly.
Thoughts?
I'd like to hear some feedback. My major concern here is the small size of our group. Then again we have some big hearts in our club, I know I would be in for a weekend once a year to help keep our trails open.
Introduction:
We have been pretty lucky here in Southern Alberta to have not one, but two huge designated off-road parks. However if you go back a few years, we used to have 3 of them, not only that we had significantly more trail access within the remaining two.
Mud bogging through sensitive muskeg areas, irresponsible destruction of the ground and a general misuse of the areas by a small minority of idiots is what led to the trail and park closures we see today.
Awareness:
One thing we should start to focus on is getting new members aware of what is and is not acceptable on the trail. There are a lot of SRD rules that apply to us on the trail. I figure the most effective way is to give a handout or quick speal on official club runs. We could also post it in the first post of any runs we setup on here.
Public Perception:
This is probably the hardest thing for our club to cope with, harder than most other clubs for sure. We should really start to be more careful about what goes online and who has access to it. One thing that has plagued the larger clubs is scape-goating by the media. A journalist eager to break a controversial story need look no further than a pack of Hummers. Even a few pictures or videos of legal activity could be used against us. As you can see with that other club, people took special interest in getting them fired from their jobs and now the push is on to have them prosecuted by SRD (Alberta Sustainable Resource Development). NOT the kind of interest we want!!
Positive Action:
So far because we are a much smaller club we haven't really been involved in some of the trail restoration or other projects going on in our areas. That doesn't mean we can't start doing something about it though. I think we should take a serious look at joining up with CT4WD or CJA for some of these projects.
Another option is to come up with a plan ourselves and follow through. It could be as simple as a garbage cleanup, or we can get in contact with SRD directly and apply for a permit to go in and repair parts of the trail which are torn up badly.
Thoughts?
I'd like to hear some feedback. My major concern here is the small size of our group. Then again we have some big hearts in our club, I know I would be in for a weekend once a year to help keep our trails open.
