[MCN] 116 Conservation Groups Tell Congress: Keep Bikes Out of Wilderness

[Matthew Koehler]

For Release: March 23, 2016

Contacts:          George Nickas, Wilderness Watch, 406-542-2048,
gnickas at wildernesswatch.org
                         Kevin Proescholdt, Wilderness Watch,
612-201-9266, kevinp at wildernesswatch.org




* 116 Conservation Groups Tell Congress: Keep Bikes Out of Wilderness **Some
mountain bikers are attempting to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act*


MISSOULA, MONTANA – This week 116 conservation organizations from across
America have asked Congress to oppose attempts to amend and weaken the
Wilderness Act and Wilderness protections by allowing bicycles in
designated Wilderness.

“For over a half century, the Wilderness Act has protected wilderness areas
designated by Congress from mechanization and mechanical transport, even if
no motors were involved with such activities. This has meant, as Congress
intended, that Wildernesses have been kept free from bicycles and other
types of mechanization and mechanical transport,” the 116 organizations
wrote Congress.

A copy of the letter to Congress signed by 116 conservation groups is here:
http://bit.ly/1VFoL1U

The letter to Congress comes as some mountain bikers and a mountain biking
organization – the Sustainable Trails Coalition – have announced the
intention to have legislation introduced in Congress to amend and weaken
the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in units of the National
Wilderness Preservation System.

“These mountain bikers erroneously claim that mountain bikes were allowed
in Wilderness until 1984, but then banned administratively by the U.S.
Forest Service. This claim is simply not true,” pointed out the 116
conservation organizations.

“At a time when wilderness and wildlife are under increasing pressures from
increasing populations, growing mechanization, and a rapidly changing
climate, the last thing Wilderness needs is to be invaded by mountain bikes
and other machines,” said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness
Watch.

“Mountain bikes are exactly the kind of mechanical devices and mechanical
transport that Congress intended to keep out of Wilderness in passing the
Wilderness Act.  Mountain bikes have their place, but that place is not
inside Wilderness areas,” explained Kevin Proescholdt, Conservation
Director of Wilderness Watch.

“We believe that this protection has served our nation well, and that the
‘benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness’ would be forever lost by
allowing mechanized transport in these areas. Please oppose attempts to
weaken the Wilderness Act and wilderness protections by allowing bicycles
in Wilderness,” the 116 organizations wrote Congress.


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