Originally Posted by
mike
The more use land gets, the more likely it is to stay open as public land for all. This is why "Wilderness Areas" are often the most threatened of all. Land needs public support and that support is generated mostly by people who use the land.
Promote the idea of multi-use for the land - hunting, hiking, and bicycle riding as a way to preserve the land for public use.
You bring up an excellent point that I've failed to mention. In our case, one of the biggest advocates of the bike trail is the local site superintendent. There is a very large headquarters/visitor's center on the site that rarely sees a visitor. There are blacktopped access roads that rarely see a car because they go into areas where hunting and motorized off-road vehicles are prohibited; thus they see very little use. You can fish there but the fishing is not very good. It's mostly swamp.
The biking committee wants to make use of the under-utilized areas, but the hunters see it as an encroachment on their areas.