Wilderness Legislation Threatens Off-Road Trails in Colorado

The House Resources Committee held a hearing on the Colorado Wilderness Act, a bill to designate 850,000 acres in 34 separate areas as wilderness. No motorized activity is permitted in such designated lands. The areas include lands around Redcloud Peak, Dolores River Canyons, the Palisade, Bull Gulch and Browns Canyon.

Most of the land is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Representatives for both federal agencies testified that the legislation is too sweeping and should exclude certain areas where motorized recreation, mining, timber harvest and other activities currently exist.

SEMA supports land-use decisions that are reasonable and enjoy local community support. SEMA opposes legislation, such as the current bill, however, which threatens to prohibit recreation without sufficient public consensus. To learn more about off-road issues, visit SEMA’s “Land Use Policies and Off-Road Recreation” guide. For questions, contact Ethan Landesman at ethanl@sema.org.