Geno,
Count me as one that thinks we have enough wilderness areas in the country. There are 765 wilderness Areas in the USA. That totals 109,129,657 acres according to wiki which I loath to quote but I am short on time. That totals a land mass LARGER THAN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
If you look at the recent wilderness designations made in the past 10 years, a great majority of them were made with an ulterior motive. Oftentimes that motive is a left-leaning anti natural resource; anti-local (which oftentimes has been conservative populace) benefit to the point of being punitive. And ultimately to simply increase the federal governments control and sway over more and more of the country (and in this case typically the west).
So I will ask you the same question I posed previously, do you thing the federal government has enough land? Do you support them increasing their land-holdings? Do you support them having more and more control of life on a small local level because of their insatiable appetite for more land?
I would contend we have far more designated wilderness areas than needed. That combined with public land available for access makes for more than enough public land available. Much of this public land is restricted to various degrees from ohv usage. More and more of our blm and usfs land is restricted in the users' ability to use ohv. They certainly are not relaxing those rule on "normal" public land. Same for state land here where I live.
Answers: yes, they have "enough" land. No, they have no need to "
increase their land holdings". I don't see an "insatiable appetite for more land" and therefor have a hard time answering that question.
My personal opinion, based on years of running around in various types of backcountry, there are many good reasons for the restrictions you noted to OHV use on public lands, not the least of which is damage (likely caused by a few, just like in the informal shooting areas another poster noted) to the land by not staying on designated routes. I personally don't think they should be relaxing most/many of those rules. I've seen it on a very large tract of land (the Big Boquillas in N AZ) where access had to be limited due to "jerks" (for lack of a better term) using OHV inappropriately, this given a very liberal OHV use policy for retrieving game taken away from the road. Yes, I've personally seen the ATV tracks going up the side of the hill, followed them to the top, and saw no evidence of a kill anywhere in the area. They road up there to hunt/glass and it wasn't even that large of a hill. Now, should I choose to, I have to pay an access fee to access thousands of acres of state and blm land in the checkerboard. To top it off, scouting is now limited, your access fee only covers the season for the tag you hold, and so on. Had folks not f'd things up it would still just be a sign in at the gate operation. It's not the only place I've seen evidence of OHV use in unauthorized areas. Including an instance of an "a hole" driving right past me, and right past the sign and onto a horse and pedestrian trail. In a forest where there was OHV trails and areas. Why not just use those?
Does the govt try to obtain inholdings? Yes. In some cases off set by trades. It makes management easier.
Do I think that perhaps there should be more weight given to local input. Yes. Perhaps there wouldn't be as much need if the lawsuit stuff subsided in a major way.
Enjoy your evening,
Geno
PS, how much of that land you noted as Wilderness is in AK? I like knowing that in the future folks will have a chance to see a good section of that area undeveloped.
PPS, I'm not a big fan of some/many of the wilderness/National Monument designations over the last 20-40 years myself.
