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| Losing control of OHVs |
| Part Two |
| Part 3 |
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...leave the damage, open more trails
But the OHV users who attended the Prescott Valley meeting don’t want to fix the environmental damage caused by OHV use - instead, they overwhelmingly want the program money to open even more access to public land.
In an AZG&F survey at the PV meeting, the 35 attendees answered the following eight questions with a show of hands ranking where they feel the state should spend Copper Sticker revenues. Here's how they voted:
| 1. OHV facility and /or trail development | 35 | |
| 2. Access to OHV areas | 33 | |
| 3. Long term funding for OHV management | 23 | |
| 4. Informational signs | 9 | |
| 5. Education | 9 | |
| 6. Law enforcement | 7 | |
|
7. Repair or replacement of habitat |
0 |
“That's common among the OHV user groups attending these meetings,” Senn said. “From their perspective, they're very concerned about the National Forests possibly closing access and existing OHV routes in the next few years.”
AZG&F is one of the few government agencies that asks for public opinion before making new rules, and, while the Arizona Game & Fish Commission could propose legislation in accordance with that Prescott Valley meeting vote to spend zero dollars on protecting the environment, “I don't see that happening,” Senn said.
“The Prescott Valley meeting was highly skewed by OHV users,” he said. “Other meetings around the state have been more balanced.”
While OHV users have their own agenda to keep and expand declining access, the problem goes beyond merely having a place to ride – which seems to anti-OHV people to already be just about everywhere. It's difficult to spend a weekend in the Arizona outdoors out of earshot of OHVs, because they essentially have automatic access to every place that does not specifically prohibit them, and the Copper Sticker law has no provision to change that. But Copper Sticker would provide about $600,000 annually for law enforcement to help keep OHVs out of the places they don't belong – though, if the Prescott Valley vote is an indicator, four out of five OHV users clearly oppose that idea, too.
Kissing frogs
In spite of the way the vote went in Prescott Valley, Senn views Copper Sticker as an opportunity for OHV users to be better conservationists.
“I see OHV riders in Arizona similar to the way sportsmen were back in the early 1900s, with the overexploitation of hunting and fishing resources,” Senn said. Sportsmen back then elected to tax themselves, such as through the Pittman-Robertson Act, to pay for the restoration of natural resources and the conservation of wildlife.
“OHV riders have got to do something similar to ensure there are riding opportunities in the future for themselves and for their children,” he said. “You can't get something for nothing.”
Cohen essentially agreed. “This will not stop the Forest Service or BLM or the State Lands Department from closing a trail or a road,” he cautioned the OHV users at the Prescott Valley meeting.
“The fact is, once a road or trail has been kissed by the Copper Sticker, it remains a handsome prince only as long as people fight for it.”
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