A Sordid and Destructive Affair:
Mountain Biking in National Parks
Fall 2010
Citizens
around the world, particularly in self described progressive nations, have long been
suspicious and distrustful of government(s) that exclude the public from
decision making. While they have rarely done anything about transgressions of
their democratic rights the public remains, collectively, a powerful force that
routinely diverges in its opinions, desires and vision from that of the special
interests that lobby government or are welcomed in the government fold because
they endorse a given government agenda. In an effort to neutralize, that is
“control”, this latent public power and still, at least superficially, mollify
those members of the public who take their responsibility as a citizen
seriously, federal, state and provincial governments have succeeded in forcing
and compartmentalizing citizens into the category of a special interest. The
public increasingly finds itself relegated to stakeholder status, in most cases
more impotent than many commercial and corporate special interests.
This
transformation of public rights is nothing short of a brilliant political
takeover by special, almost exclusively, commercial interests. As one environmentally perceptive author states, it easy to
“understand the dynamics of power and repression at work” in something like the
rise of stakeholder politics. And it is in the area of environmental
protection and regulation that this coercive process plays a particularly
potent role. A process that reduces the voices of millions down to a dozen or
so representatives cannot maintain control unless it picks and chooses who will
be allowed to “play the game”. And as dishonest as it is evident, governments
appear to “find their principles” when picking and funding stakeholder
participants, now insisting on “equal representation”. As a consequence, 33
million Canadians for example, find themselves “represented”, albeit
begrudgingly and in limited cases, in Federal government decision making by a
hand full of spokespersons from environmental groups while equal or greater
numbers of spokespeople for commercial and corporate interests represent the
interests of dozens or hundreds of special interest stakeholders. In the interests of new found “equal
representation”, democracy is turned upside down in stakeholder roundtables
where 3 or 4 Eco reps find themselves facing 8 or 10 commercial / corporate
stakeholders and spokespersons from governments running the process. When Parks
Canada held its “public meeting” of hand picked participants to endorse, and at
least in their eyes, “legitimize” mountain biking in Canada’s National Parks,
they invited 3 Eco “delegates”, provided they were a “Senior representative of an ENGO whose mandate is
in line with that of Parks Canada”.[1] These
sorry delegates were to represent the Canadian public at a “table” stacked with
37 other people representing interests such as “partners, mountain biking groups and associations,
equipment suppliers, companies who manage the activity”. As if this
were not a sordid enough affair, Parks Canada hired the former executive
director of the Canadian International Mountain Biking Association as National
trails coordinator, who may well have chaired that meeting! Having railroaded
the process, it appears Parks Canada willingly subjected itself, the people of
Canada, and just as importantly, democracy itself, to a coup d’etat, as the
Minister has recently reaffirmed that mountain biking “could soon become part
of the menu of activities offered in national Parks”.[2]
This is a factually dishonest statement, since biking has already invaded parks
like Banff and Jasper.
While this
represents a grotesque betrayal of democratic process, what is equally as duplicitous
is the eagerness with which certain individuals and environmental groups
(including prominent ones such as the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society)
abandon the public, ecological science, historical precedents, and legal and
due process, and embrace and defend their now favored stakeholder status,
encasing themselves as “insiders” in these closed-to-the-public meetings and
discussions. While this divisive process has continued to evolve since the
1970s, stakeholder politics now reign as the most democratically erosive and
environmentally destructive schemes conceived of by governments catering to
growth and expansion agendas of commercial and corporate interests.
Governments, particularly corporate friendly ones, have embraced these
deceptive processes as a means of excluding the public from participating in
what should be legislated public processes, thus divorcing the people from
decisions related to the control and management of exceptionally valuable
public resources like National Parks.
From within
this cesspool of corrupted internal
machinations, a non existent public hearing process, and critically flawed and
prejudicial public consultation claims, has oozed the latest in what has become
a mountain of threats to Canada’s National Parks; mountain biking. True to its
secretive political and management culture, Parks Canada has held no public
hearings – let me emphasize this; we are talking about never - and commissioned
or internally instigated no social impact or environmental impact assessment of
the widely know and well documented damages and conflicts generated by mountain
biking. Nowhere in the National Park system is the threat greater than in Banff
National Park, the internationally recognized flagship of Canadas Park system,
where public policy has been hijacked by private sector Chamber of commerce
interests with deceptively folksy names such as the Association of Mountain
Parks for Protection & Enjoyment.
The
fundamental failure of this close-knit alliance between business interests,
public lands agencies and hand picked environmental group “stakeholders” is
that they aggressively exclude participation by historical and traditional
low-impact public lands users each of whom has, and should have, a
constitutional right to be heard. As a result there is no voice for the large
numbers of citizens who support the historical and traditional culture of
National Parks and who oppose the expansion of destructive, divisive and
conflict laden commercial exploitation of our public lands.
Contrary to
claims by the IMBA (International Mountain Biking Association) and bikers,
mountain biking is largely driven by speed, aggression, thrill seeking,
idolatry of gear, and competition. In most cases it has as much to do with
being in and appreciating the outdoors as would be the Yankees claim that they
play baseball because they are outdoor enthusiasts. The mountain biking
industry, along with its trade associations (like BikesBelong and IMBA)[3],
on the other hand, is driven by corporations and dealers
focussed on
expanded sales and consumption and it openly fuels biker extremism and aggression.
It may also be an arm of ultra right wing elements in society that motivate its
attack on environmental laws, wilderness, the protection of public land
ecosystems,[4] and
public management and ownership of public lands.
Wrapped in body armor, virtually unable to
look left or right, hearing impaired (by helmets and riding noise), engrossed
in overpowering and surviving the trail and its “obstacles” – labeled in one
mountain biker forum as “whoopdeedos” - and pumped with adrenaline and
testosterone (75% or more of bikers are young males), bikers engage in an
activity that negates each and every one of the benefits of being outdoors,
from enjoying and interacting with the natural world, to finding solitude, to
escaping from the stress, noise and pressures of modern society. Mountain
biking violates every fundamental principle and public vision for which
National Parks were established, and until now, managed.
No group of
land users, other than motorized off roaders, has been permitted to create wide
spread and intense conflict on public lands like mountain bikers have. The
behavior of the leaders and promoters of mountain biking is grounded in
sensation seeking, competitiveness and hostility, strongly paralleling the
behavior associated with reckless driving of automobiles.[5]
The industry glorifies aggressive and objectionable behavior, and far too many
of the people recruited by this behavior fall into the mold. In addition to
forcing a sense of urbanization into natural landscapes, mountain biking
sharply escalates dangerous behavior, where wheeled vehicles powered by
mechanical advantage, often weighing several hundred pounds (with rider),
hurtle down trails at speeds that threaten, intimidate, injure and kill people
who at one time were able to walk peacefully, and safely, on public lands. While
there is a cohort of bike users who confine their vehicles to roads like other
vehicles, the majority resist doing so. Few things can be more offensive in a
natural setting than a mob of biksters and their vehicles “ripping” down a
formerly quiet trail or chugging up an open ridge, often while assaulting ones
senses with rainbow
spandex obliterated with corporate logos. Mountain bikers, contrary to the
hypocrisy of their motto “share the trails”, have generated more animosity
between themselves and legitimate trail walkers and hikers than ever in public
lands management history. A group of physicians addressing some of the behavior
and impacts of mountain bikers and bikes say it well :
“We as physicians see the shared use of these narrow trails as hazardous to
both pedestrians and cyclists. Because these dangers are inherently obvious, as
has happened elsewhere, pedestrians would begin to avoid these shared trails,
reducing their options for recreation and exercise.” [6]
And that’s precisely what is happening across North America; in Jasper National
Park, for example, bikers have now taken control of over 200 km of former
hiking and walking trails, driving traditional peaceful users, many of whom
have enjoyed these trails for a lifetime, to abandon them.
Mountain
bikers and the mountain biking industry have so far waged a highly successful
campaign of denial of impacts and conflicts and diversion of the significance
of these issues [7] that
has pulled the blinders over the eyes of management agencies and fleeced the
public. But reality, however slowly, is catching up to this deception.
The
incremental and cumulative environmental and social impacts of mountain biking
are as obvious as the schnozzola was on Jimmy Durantes face (too old for you? try
Kramer of Seinfeld), yet management agencies are sitting around in denial and
indifference as if dumbstuck. The physical, behavioral and ecological impacts
of bikers that travel as much as 70 km a day are 7 to 10 times greater than
those of the average hiker. With weight loadings on tires that are 6 to 8 times
greater than those of the human foot, and are further aggravated by skidding,
spinning, cornering, and jumping, much of it deliberate, impacts on soils,
streams, wildlife and vegetation are exponentially more significant. Yet we
continue to have “institutes” and “researchers” robotically droning on that “the available published literature indicates that
mountain biking ….. as an anthropogenic disturbance is
similar in its environmental effects as other forms of summer season trail
use”. [8] Direct impacts specific to mountain biking,
as though ordained by some superior being (or could it be an advocacy think
tank), are summarily being dismissed unless compared to some other activity.
The operational and ecological reality of cumulative effects, like the
proverbial greased pig, appears to have escaped the grasp of land and wildlife
management and conservation professionals and agencies who behave as though
extensive and growing mountain biking impacts can only be measured when related
to those of traditional hiking activity. Fortunately, growing evidence and
wiser voices are now being heard regarding the hazards of mountain biking; it
should be obvious that the following also applies to the science, management,
and prevention of impacts associated with biking: “we should
not assume the lack of studies implies safety, nor should we allow the absence
of scientific certainty to stand in the way of exercising our common sense.” [9]
Regulation and management that protects citizens (seeking the emotional, psychological
and physical rewards associated with outdoor enjoyment), land, water, wildlife
and vegetation should be based on extension and inference from existing
information, evidence accumulated through scientific process, common sense, and
conflict elimination; it is irresponsible and unacceptable to keep passing the
buck – in this case approving mountain bike environmental abuse and social
conflict - because of (false) claims
that a smoking gun has not yet been identified.
The loss of
wildlife habitat security, much of it due to fragmentation and fracturing of
habitat by roads and trails built for motorized and mechanized vehicles like mountain
bikes,[10]
is a world wide problem directly linked to critical declines in fish and
wildlife population viability and ominous losses of biological diversity.
National Parks and wilderness areas were established partly to counter these
threats and to prevent landscape degradation commonly associated with private
lands and public lands “managed” for extractive consumption and mechanized
exploitation. As the Earths life support systems deteriorate in the face of
over threshold human populations and industrial use, the value of intact and
protected public lands in counteracting these forces has never been
greater. When new trails are constructed
to cater to bikers, or hikers and the walking public
are driven from trails by high speed vehicles (bikes), or “trails”
become roads as
they are hardened and widened to accommodate speed and all weather biker travel,
wildlife displacement and harassment escalate and habitat security and
effectiveness are
damaged and lost.[11]
Mountain bikes and bikers have attacked even remote remnant ecological and
biodiversity strongholds because of their extensive reach – even 50 km does not
deter them.
Mountain
bikers are notorious regulatory cheats and their history of illegal trail
construction (and its associated destruction of soil and vegetation) virtually
everywhere they descend on a piece of land is legendary, just as is the
inability of management personnel and agencies to police biker activity and
protect the land and legitimate land users through effective enforcement.[12]
It is a massive and thoughtless
distortion to imply that these activities are somehow compatible with “unique
and treasured protected areas”! [13]
Choking budgets and staff reductions imposed on land management agencies are
widening the gap between enforcement (protection) and user violations, giving
free rein to mountain biker environmental destruction and social conflict. This
is not what Canadians or Americans expect of their National Parks or public
lands and it is not the purpose for which these unique landscapes were
established.
It is
increasingly difficult to tell whether Canadians and Americans just don’t care
about the destructive onslaught of mountain biking – I don’t think this is the
case for
many of them – or whether they have
been pounded into a state of numbness by government and corporate resistance to
public participation; it may also be that they have been so blitzed by
incessant commercialization and private sector exploitation of public resources
and corruption of public processes that their defenses have simply
been
overwhelmed and they no longer realize that they have been, and are being,
taken to the cleaners. A significant portion of this retreat is, I suspect,
related to the deep and expanding cultural gap in North American society initiated
and fueled by specialized activities and occupations and closely linked
corporate and commercial interests.[14]
This gap consists on one side of special commercial interests like mountain
bike manufacturers and dealers who see public lands like National Parks as cash
cows waiting to be exploited, and on the other side, the majority of society
who have for a hundred years struggled to protect the cultural and ecological
integrity of public lands and the rights of citizens and visitors to build and
restore their physical and emotional sense of well being through direct and
indirect communion with the natural world. Already suffering the consequences
of regulatory vulnerability, National Parks management is caving in to the
pressure from the Chamber of Commerce lobby and mountain bikers to ignore
cumulative impact and “throw the kitchen sink” into the mix of users, and they
are doing so without hearing from, listening to or respecting the traditional
quiet users and supporters of Parks.
The
attempted sweep of mountain biking into National Parks is a not-so-thin edge of
a phalanx of privatization schemes wherein National Parks, and all other public
lands, have thrown open the doors to ecologically and socially destructive and
objectionable user behavior in order to pander to commercial and economic
interests. One thing is certain – we,
the people, have been out maneuvered by political manipulation and betrayed by
national and regional environmental groups flying the flag of stakeholders.
North Americans are slowly letting themselves become “customers” (a dangerous
downgrade from citizen status), and customers always pay when using a
“product”. National Parks, which we still own and once thought we controlled,
are no exception. In this case the costs are enormous – loss of ecological well
being, loss of a national and traditional common currency or ownership, pride
and equal access, loss of public oversight of National Park decision making, and elimination of
the legal right to participation in establishing the vision and direction of
Park management by any citizen who chooses to exercise that right. Commercial
interests, and now mountain bikers, are determined to turn our National Parks
into Disneyland replicas.
There
exists a last minute antidote to the mountain bike threat. It requires an
awakening by citizens across North America, who have a
right and responsibility to call for:
1) a
Ministerial or Parliamentary injunction (moratorium) prohibiting all mountain
biking
in all
National Parks, (mountain bike vehicle use on roads like other vehicles
excepted).
This
injunction should remain in place until,
2)
any and all citizens who chose to be heard, are
heard, via legally mandated public
hearings held across the country, regarding whether Canadians are prepared to sacrifice a century long culture and tradition of National Park enjoyment, pride and ecological integrity for an activity that is inherently conflict driven and environmentally destructive, and
3) an
independent assessment of the environmental, social, cultural and decision
making
impact of
mountain biking in the National Park context with full public disclosure
and comment
periods, has been completed.
4) the
biased and prejudicial behavior of Parks Canada regarding mountain biking in
National
Parks has been investigated and made public.
Dr. Brian L. Horejsi
Calgary, Alberta
27 October 2010
[1] Parks Canada. 2010. Parks Canada’s National Assessment of Mountain Biking. Meeting
in Ottawa,
Ont., March
23-25, 2010. From Canadian Environmental Network
website, 03 March 2010.
[2] Prentice, J. 2010. New recreational activities in national parks, national historic sites
and national marine conservation areas. News release of 09 September 2010,
Parks Canada, Ottawa.
[3] Gyurina, S.2009. Subject: Re:
BikesBelong - assuming you know about this organization. E mail by SG, Dated Mon, 3 Aug 2009
[4] Sands, W. 2010. Hermosa plan takes shape. October 214, 2010. The Durango Telegraph (CO).
[5] See Harris, P. B., and J. M. Houston. 2010. Recklessness in context: Individual and
situational correlates to aggressive driving. Environment and behavior 42(1):
44-60.
[6] Medical Society of Metropolitan Portland. 2010. In Forest Park, biking and hiking
don't belong together. Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, In OregonLive, By
the Board of directors.
[7] See Jacques, P. J., Dunlap, R. E., and M. Freeman. 2008. The organisation of denial: Conservative think
tanks and environmental scepticism. Environmental Politics 17(3):349-385, for an understanding
of this agenda, its origins, and its drivers.
[8] Quinn, M., and G. Chernoff. 2010. Mountain biking: a review of the ecological effects.
For Parks Canada, National Office. Mistakis Institute, Univ. of Calgary, Calgary,
AB.
[9] Medical Society of Metropolitan Portland. 2010. In Forest Park, biking and hiking don't
belong together. Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, In OregonLive, by the
Board of Directors.
[10] Mountain bikers routinely argue that they use their vehicles as transportation, demanding that
they be allowed to drive through natural areas, whether they be wilderness or
National Parks, so they can go from town to town! See, for example, footnote 4.
[11] The prospect of three and/ or four wheeled bikes, and bikes driven by electricity, are
now only in the formative stage, but the expansion of facilities and services these
glorified bikes will bring with them parallels that associated with the ballooning
size of “off road” vehicles that now a) rival automobiles in width and size, b) have dramatically escalated environmental impacts, and c) have overwhelmed regulatory agencies!
[12] Johnson, J. And Porter, K. 2010. Trail wars at Annadel State Park. The Press
Democrat. Published: Monday, July 5, 2010 at 7:32 p.m. There are dozens of
public reports of illegal behavior, regulatory violations and failure to regulate similar to those
reported in this article.
[13] Prentice, J. 2010. New recreational activities in national parks, national historic sites
and national marine conservation areas. News release of 09 September 2010,
Parks Canada, Ottawa. I suspect, and sincerely hope, that Minister Prentice did not make this
assertion; that responsibility likely rests with a woefully under informed and/or seriously
compromised
Public Official.
[14] See Ehrlich, P.R., and A. H. Ehrlich. 2010. The culture gap and its needed closures.
International Journal of Environmental Studies 67(4):481-492.