Land Usage
In some countries where fencing is not common, such as the US, Canada and Australia, a huge percentage of ATV riders knowingly cross privately owned property in rural areas and travel over public/private properties, where their use is limited only to trails. Subsequently, environmentalists criticize ATV riding as a sport for excessive use in areas biologists consider to be sensitive, especially wetlands and sand dunes and in much of inland Australia.
While the deep treads on some ATV tires are effective for navigating rocky, muddy and root covered terrain, these treads are also capable of digging channels that may drain bogs, increase sedimentation in streams at crossings and damage groomed snowmobile trails. Proper trail construction techniques can mitigate these effects. Studies have also shown that ATVs may help in the spread of invasive species. Because both scientific studies and U.S. National Forest Service personnel have identified unregulated Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs) as the source of major detrimental impacts on national forests, the U.S. Forest Service is currently engaged in the Travel Management Process, wherein individual forests are restricting all off-road motorized travel to approved trails and roads. This is in contrast to its previously allowed, unregulated cross-country travel across all national forest lands, except for specifically designated wilderness areas. Although ORVs had been identified 30 years ago as a threat to wild ecosystems by the Forest Service, only after pressure by an unlikely alliance of environmentalists, private landowners, hunters, ranchers, fishermen, quiet recreationists and forest rangers themselves (who identified ORVs as a "significant law enforcement problem" in national forests). has action been taken. The Travel Management Rule was initiated in 2004; completion is expected in 2010.
ATVs using tracks instead of wheels are used at France's Cap Prudhomme in Antarctica.
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