Mountain Biking and Wilderness Controversy Explored

commentary by Julie Kay Smithson

2/16/04

(Note: Recreationists, many of you are being sucked into this vortex, one that will eventually rob you of your access to what you perceive to be 'public lands' by such as this. The ancient 'Divide and Conquer' ploy is fully employed here, just as it was used to splinter the timber harvesters from the farmers; the ranchers from the recreationists; the commercial fishermen from the sport fishermen; the miners from the recreational miners, etc.

This language deception smoke and mirrors is nothing new, it's just wearing a different disguise. Do you really think that this agenda to control all the lands, waters, minerals, people and their culture and mobility is going to exempt you?

It's just not going to happen. It is time -- if you have not already done so -- to awaken and become alert, aware and apprised of the scope of this scheme to rule the world. It's not the first time such conquers have walked the earth -- remember the Roman Empire and Attila the Hun? It probably won't be the last. But today's agendists have found a slick 'sales pitch:' they will 'protect and restore' the wilderness for you! Do you believe it?

Even as I type this, our ability to grow our own food is being 'fast-tracked' to other countries by those that will benefit immensely from it. Even as you read these words, our ability to harvest our own renewable resources is being 'outsourced,' along with our very freedom. Please, it's time for us all to stand together and celebrate property rights and resource providers -- and tell Congress that The Wildlands Project for what it really is: a ploy to steal your freedom and mine. Then, come Election Day, vote, and vote against those that vote for such shams. Look at the maps at this website; if interstate traffic and other transportation is outlawed in these places, do you really think you'll still be allowed to play there? If you do, you're spitting into the wind.)

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(no date, no author given)

Would opening designated wilderness areas to biking exacerbate the "creeping degradation" of the National Wilderness Preservation System? Or might the wilderness movement, newly swelled by millions of mountain bikers, stimulate Congress to designate vast new swaths of wilderness on federal public land if designated wilderness areas were opened to biking?

In an extended forum of viewpoints in the current Wild Earth, veteran wilderness advocates (including Dave Foreman, Andy Kerr, and others) and a long-time board member of the International Mountain Biking Association (Jim Hasenauer) wrestle over these questions.

Download this spirited series of commentaries here: http://www.wildlandsproject.org/inside_wp/mtn_bike.pdf (19-page PDF file)

http://www.wildlandsproject.org/inside_wp/index_news.html