BAKERSFIELD, CA (July 1, 2010) – On July 8, 2010 President Obama’s national dialogue about how to reconnect with the outdoors comes to Southern California. This is the perfect opportunity for the OHV community to explain how our sport brings families together, helps us connect with the outdoors and gets us away from the distractions of today’s technologies.
Please make time to attend this event.
•When: Thursday – July 8, 2010, 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm
•What: Public Listening Session on President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative
•Where : Thorne Hall, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, CA 90041 (See map at http://www.oxy.edu/x6307.xml)
The goal of this program is for the federal government to learn how to reconnect Americans, especially children, with the outdoors. Help the people holding this event better understand the needs of the thousands of families that recreate off-road in Southern California’s deserts. According to the website about this program they are looking for answers to the following questions:
Challenges – What obstacles exist to achieving your goals for conservation, recreation and reconnecting people to the outdoors? Explain that we are constantly losing areas to ride in. This makes for unsafe riding conditions and more impacts on the natural resources in the areas that remain open. Ask that our current riding areas be congressionally designated for OHV use giving them a higher level of protection against closure and encroachment.
What Works – Please share your thoughts and ideas on effective strategies for conservation, recreation and reconnecting people to the outdoors. Encourage the federal government to visit one of our State Vehicular Recreation Areas (SVRA). These are areas where OHV use is well funded and managed while at the same time protecting natural resources.
Federal Government – How can the federal government be a more effective partner in helping achieve conservation, recreation, or reconnecting people to the outdoors? Demand that every agency that manages land for the federal government create a comprehensive OHV recreation plan! Point out the fact that the federal government creates plans for conservation, energy exploration and species preservation. There are a million registered OHV’s in California and most of those recreate on federally managed land yet there is NO comprehensive OHV recreation plan.
Tools – What additional tools and resources would help your efforts to be even more successful? Ask for OHV recreation to get more funding in the federal budget. The areas we currently have are horribly under funded. We need money for basic operating tools like trail maps, trail signs and trail maintenance.
