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My Use Is Not Best

By Jan Nesset

Most of us have no recourse but to recreate on public lands. Ted Turner has 2 million acres of personal and ranch land on which he can do as he wishes, he and his friends.

But most of us do not have access to such an aberration, instead having to share our - 304 million Americans (tick, tick . . . !) - 600 million acres of public land, a third of the country. While that may seem like a lot of public estate, consider the variety of uses we employ on it. With boot, hoof, tire and paddle, we're in contact with the land, reaching deep into it, primarily on trails, none of us going into it invisible or unimpactful. None of us are less needy of it. None of us more worthy.

We're multi-users, which is how our public lands should be recreated. I've tested the multi-use trail concept, and I like it. However, a lifetime of living near and using public lands has proven to me beyond a doubt that not every trail is a candidate for multi-use. Some trails are barely single use, others certainly multi-use. The stinker with public lands today isn't the question of multi-use but rampant myopia. Too many single-use - "my use is best" - users spoil the multi-use concept convinced their use is applicable on all but the rare trail, roughly everywhere. It just isn't so. That's my answer for every trail.

There are multi-use storms brewing throughout the West. In southeast Utah, with Moab - "the world's playground" - as the epicenter, land managers are holding court with a battery of public comment on how best to multi-use the region. Writer Jen Jackson gets into it in her article, "Moab at a Crossroads," pg. 36, and observes that changes today can impact the region forever. We had best pay attention.