Nibbling Away at Your Freedoms

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Del Albright

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Launch Member

Enthusiast III

1,798
Mokelumne Hill, CA
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12176

The True Story of Nibblers

A Sad Commentary on California Land Use Groups and Efforts


By Del Albright

(Fist published by the Calif. 4Wheel Drive Association, In-Gear, Sept.-Oct. 2022)

The "nibblers" are after your freedoms. They want to nibble away at everything you hold precious – from guns, access, how your kids are educated, what bible you follow, how you recreate, and more. "They" have many names, but more importantly, they have influence and are instituting daily changes in your life.

Let's take landuse and access to our motorized trails as an example. If "they" don't like a trail we're doing, they will find an endangered species, an invasive species, or some archeological site to use against us. And they nibble. One bite at a time is all it takes.

It's easy to succumb to the one-bite approach. It doesn't seem like much if we give up a section of trail or re-route a trail over just one itty bitty endangered frog. Right? Nibble. Then comes the arch site—another nibble.

Anyway, you get the picture. There is always some nibbling going on around our sports that include motors. So, what do organizations and groups do? Well, let's form a committee and study it. For sure, that is government. But let's get into what happens with committees.

In this day and age, most resource-oriented efforts strive to attain long-lasting results. Currently, "sustainable" is America's most significant buzzword (especially with government and anti-access groups). And who can argue with that – if we can't sustain it, we'll for sure lose it.

And the nibblers love that word. It's easy to throw up a roadblock to show that something may not be sustainable. Then we have to study it in committees – more.

Now to complicate things more, let's bring in organizational turf battles and who's boots are filling with liquid. Sure, we can form a committee and study it, but we go into it "walls up" and are ready to fight to defend our turf, sometimes to the detriment of getting something positive done. Personalities and egos set in.

Ok, no worries. Let's find cool names that sound very important and problem-solving-like and keep studying them. But doesn't it look like we're doing something if it's "in committee?"

California came to land use life on October 31, 1994, with the loss of 8 million acres to the Desert Protection Act. Immediately we started to form committees and groups to fix stuff.

1994: Land Use Network (LUN), the first significant land use email and internet group.

1996: North American Motorized Recreation Council (NAMRC), a national multiple use motorized group.

1997: Resource Education Network (REN), CA's first multiple-use group.

1997: Multiple Use Shared Trails Workshop (MUST), CA's first hands-on multiple-use land use workshop.

1997: BLITZ 1997, a massive marketing effort to engage motorized users nationwide under the umbrella of the LUN.

1999: Sierra Nevada Framework, CA forest plan amendment efforts (stemmed from same folks in REN).

2003: Multiple Use Summit, CA's first organized gathering of all aspects of recreational leaders in backcountry uses.

And I'm sure I left out a few. But my involvement started in 1981 when I completed a Master's Thesis in Coordinated Resource Management and Planning (CRMP), trying to bring diverse interests together for a common goal. CRMP was part of the founding principles for the start of the REN and NAMRC.

Now we have names like Cross-Jurisdictional Collaboration to Advance Sustainable Recreation, Sustainable & Accessible Recreation, Responsible Recreation, and so on. For example, in California, we implemented the California Motorized Recreation Council (CMRC), a direct and state-specific spin-off of NAMRC. While always hopeful, it never ends.

We keep finding new names for the same idea with similar slants/missions. SO WHAT??? Follow-ups and actions that accomplish something are more important than having more meetings (and committees). Committees produce reports. Reports get passed around and filed. But not enough gets done to save trails or keep our sports alive. We MUST change that and ensure whatever committees and groups we have working for us get something done!

The nibblers are winning, bite by bite. And it's all because we aren't doing enough – we aren't engaged enough. We don't insist on more actions and less talk. Further, we don't support our organized recreation groups enough to fight back. Worse, we don't feel the gate closing on our butt – yet.

It is my humble opinion that, yes, we have more than enough committees, and yes, we need to be part of them – to ensure we get ACTION out of these cool-named entities that leave open doors for the nibblers. But we need to bolster our organized recreation groups (who make up the committees) to the point that our fight-back is strong, solid, and sustainable.

Allow me to say that again; we need to ensure our fight-back is sustainable.

Join, donate, and volunteer your time to those organizations you believe in to help keep the nibblers away from our dinner table.

Del
 

Contributor II

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La Habra, CA, USA
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Constance
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Mooth
Good and detailed story Del about the nibblers. I couldn't even think about all of it. Thanks for sharing. I love to travel and discover new things for myself, I love to meet people and do voluntary work. But I work only with local organizations in my city. Once I wrote about essay services as my sister is a student and sometimes she needs some help. Well, I should admit I'm not so good at writing and I had lack of time, so I decided to use one essay writing service. It was written brilliant and briefly just like your story about the nibblers just sticked to the point. My sister could understand that it was not my writing and she said it's not good and not legal that I used the third service. I googled on the web and showed her an answer is edubirdie legal or cheating on the blog Is Edubirdie Legal or Cheating? Online Service Review. After it she was sure it's fine and no worries. Many people use writing services and it's normal. People have different talents: someone is good at match, someone is good at writing, another is creative personality, someone can write a short stories like Del above without any problem. But writing work is obligatory in each grade.
 
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World Traveler III

1,518
Nokomis, FL, USA
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John
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Fazio
Some of you are missing Del's point. This is about directly meeting with Government and Environmentalists. There are several organizations that have been involved on our behalf for years. Time to join more groups. Ie. Cal 4 wheel drive. Blue ribbon coalition. Corva? Pacific legal foundation.
Or maybe some of us have direct experience with how incrementalism works through community buy-in. There is rarely ever outrage when a well intentioned organization agrees to a concession. I personally prefer a ludicrous change be met by public outrage forcing it to be retracted instead of the slow erosion of today's supposed normalcy. By all means, if you are so inclined, you should join some groups.
 

Del Albright

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Enthusiast III

1,798
Mokelumne Hill, CA
Member #

12176

The absolute FIRST step to saving our sport, saving trails, and keeping Overlanding healthy and available is to JOIN everything that makes sense to you. Without joining, you have NO voice in how public lands are managed. Yes, perhaps you are good about writing a few letters now and then to your elected officials. And perhaps you make a meeting now and then. But your voice needs to be heard at "The table" -- where organized recreation groups get invited to attend and have the resources to do it. Otherwise, quite honestly, you are not helping save the sport.
 
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World Traveler III

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Nokomis, FL, USA
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John
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Fazio
The sport doesn't need saving, the actions of certain people need to change. Your argument is the same made by every group trying to "save" whatever it is they are impassioned about. Save the 2nd amendment by being involved with the restrictions that will never change the behavior of criminals. Save the planet, a ridiculous phrase in itself, by paying a carbon tax, giving up your vehicle, and eating bugs. Save overlanding by agreeing to certain area closures while keeping others open. It is a never ending spiral of incrementalism that will ultimately result in a cage too small for even breath. Don't get me wrong, there is a problem but it won't be solved through negotiations, agreements, and definitely not concessions. Either the authorities need to enforce the existing laws/rules or the people need to start doing it themselves. Continuing down the road of bureaucracy only enriches the house.
 

MOAK

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The sport doesn't need saving, the actions of certain people need to change. Your argument is the same made by every group trying to "save" whatever it is they are impassioned about. Save the 2nd amendment by being involved with the restrictions that will never change the behavior of criminals. Save the planet, a ridiculous phrase in itself, by paying a carbon tax, giving up your vehicle, and eating bugs. Save overlanding by agreeing to certain area closures while keeping others open. It is a never ending spiral of incrementalism that will ultimately result in a cage too small for even breath. Don't get me wrong, there is a problem but it won't be solved through negotiations, agreements, and definitely not concessions. Either the authorities need to enforce the existing laws/rules or the people need to start doing it themselves. Continuing down the road of bureaucracy only enriches the house.
Interesting; I too consider it a matter of enforcing laws, rules & courtesies. Going to bed with one political party, or one politician? Once they lose an election, then all agreements are off the table. That's why, in my humble opinion, it is necessary to hedge your bets and play both sides. It's a tough call and I do not envy Del's place in this. One thing we all know, politicians change with the wind, at the same time they are promising to go to bat for your organization, they will side with monied interests, open up public lands to mineral leases and the gates go up. ( example? ) Good luck traversing the Allegheny National Forest in any meaningful way. Definitions are important. Our thinking " keep public land open" is much different than a mining entity that wants to "keep public land open". Do I belong to a club? yes, and a large portion of our yearly dues and event fees help to pay for lobbyists and organizations that work on our behalf. I also do business with companies that donate a portion of the sale to organizations such as the BRC , Tread Lightly & Leave No Trace. A new law in Utah has taken effect that involves off road machines and their users. I don't believe this was a compromise, as much as it was a necessity to curb stupidity. The new law does not apply to street registered vehicles. Any way, food for thought. Be good; Do good:
 
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