There's a known rule that while 90% of any given group is generally following the rules, being courteous, and treating others with respect and fairness, the 10% that are yahoos, awful, and terrible in every respect will get the most coverage. Squeaky wheel and such.
That truism can be applied to outdoor recreation, as the vast majority of folks are good people. They care about the environment, how we leave a trailhead, how we leave the trail, and aren't slinging rocks at Mach Jesus while passing those along an off-road trail. It's true of hunters, fishermen, off-roaders, UTVrs, dirt bikers, climbers, hikers, campers, and literally every group enjoying our public lands.
And recently, we nearly lost it all.
We nearly lost our public lands due to the political machinations of a group of politicians that absolutely hate that we collectively own something as a populace. We nearly lost the outdoor access we all love, the outdoor access that benefits every single group of recreators. But we didn't, and that was because we put aside our differences and came together to vehemently oppose the sale of our public lands. We made it so toxic that even the most craven of politicians had to relent their attacks. It was, and is, a massive win for public land advocates.
But it also shone a brighter light on that 90/10 rule as, though we came together, there was still infighting among the groups about why each other sucked. Why each other didn't have the best interests of the land at heart. How a UTVr once railed past them pretending an easy trail was Dakar. How a hunter nearly shot a 4x4r and so on and so on across every single group. They're uncommon anecdotes, but they get the most attention. And all of us, every group, needs to be better at policing our own.
Because our public lands are still under attack.
I've written about this topic before. In fact, it was one of my first columns after taking RideApart over. The conceit was pretty much the same as today, as The Salt Lake Tribune published an Op-Ed about how a hiker was mad about some UTV driver and called for their outright ban from off-road trails. It was, and still is, foolish for a variety of reasons, chief among them that your anecdotal evidence is not indicative of the larger population of UTV owners and drivers.
Again, 90/10.
But their experience shouldn't be pushed aside either. It did happen, and it happens across all the groups that recreate on public lands. Public lands are some of the last places where you don't need to pay an entry fee to recreate how you see fit. And it brings together millions of people, across all walks of life, across all disciplines of outdoor recreation, and puts them into the same spot. Granted, it's over hundreds of millions of acres, so you could theoretically get away from the crowds if you want to, but millions upon millions enjoying the same space is always going to breed conflict.
And all groups within this community have problem members. I've seen it across the powersports industry, as well as the hunting and fishing communities. I have friends who've encountered folks who've been less than nice from the climber, backpacking, and camping camps, too. Every group has their own assholes, it's just a fact of life.
What we need, especially given how precarious our public lands situation was over the last two months, however, is better internal policing of our personal groups. That's not to say we need more actual police or rangers on the trail. Rather, we need to step up and call our own out if and when we see them acting out, doing something stupid, shaming them for littering and trashing campsites, and telling them off when they're being dangerous. We need to show the world, and indeed the other groups that recreate outdoors, that we all can be forces for good and hopefully reduce that 90/10 rule to 99/1.
You'll never be able to fully expel the dipshits, but you can reduce their harm by calling them out when you see it. Likewise, we can do better to promote that each of these groups wants the best for the outdoors, whether that's through trash cleanups with groups like Tread Lightly! or the Gambler 500, through wildlife cooridor conservation with Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and others, or trail maintenance with off-road and dirt bike groups in partnership with the local forestry departments.
We need to show each other that we all care about this invaluable resource, and that we aim to do right by it despite maybe not enjoying it as others do. We need to be better stewards, better conservationists, better public land owners, and better etitque enforcement of our own. And if we do that, if we can come together, even when our public lands aren't threatened, they'll never be threatened again.
And that's absolutely something we can all do.
