(NORTH CAROLINA STATE LIBRARY 

 RALEIGH 



UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROUNA 



^<ljM[W©Q)yUili 



March, 1978 



ORV use: 



A question of resource management 



It was a crowded, smoke-filled room. 



At first glance one might have easily mistaken it 

 for a town meeting in a scene from a John Huston 

 western. 



But the cast of characters was real and the setting 

 spring, 1978, Nags Head, North Carolina. The topic 

 of discussion: how should off-road recreational vehi- 

 cles (ORVs) be managed within the boundaries of 

 Cape Hatteras National Seashore? It was a question 

 that was proving to be one of the most controversial 

 issues the seashore had yet to face. 



The crowd had come from miles away that stormy 

 March evening to attend the fourth in a series of 

 public workshops on the park service's planned revi- 

 sion of ORV use regulations. At the workshop, 

 National Park Service representatives described the 

 process by which a new management plan would be 

 formulated. They asked the public to comment on a 

 draft proposal they had prepared in January and 

 make recommendations for improvement. 



Reaction to the draft proposal was confusing and 

 contradictory. Many rejected it outright as being in- 

 complete and unacceptable. Others supported the 

 park service's authority in knowing what was best for 

 the seashore. But virtually everyone in the room 



agreed that coming up with an equitable plan would 

 not be easy. Ultimately it would require that a con- 

 scious decision be made as to which uses of the 

 seashore had priority over others. 



The National Park Service's decision to more 

 closely regulate the use of off-road recreational vehi- 

 cles within Cape Hatteras National Seashore and 

 other park lands stems back to a 1972 executive order 

 in which the park service was directed to "establish 

 policies and provide for procedures that will ensure 

 that the use of off-road vehicles on public lands will 

 be controlled and directed so as to protect the 

 resources of those lands, to promote the safety of all 

 users of those lands and to minimize conflicts among 

 the various users of those lands." 



The executive order attempted to provide a 

 framework from which a unified federal policy could 

 be established. Specifically, it required that areas 

 open to ORVs on public lands be located so as "to 

 minimize damage to soil, watersheds, vegetation or 

 other resources ... to minimize harassment of 

 wildlife or significant disruption of wildlife habitat" 

 and "to minimize conflicts between off-road vehicle 



(See "National Park, " page 2) 



