An advocacy group, Concerned Citizens for the Forest, is being formed to fight the closure of roads to off-road vehicles (ORVs), the outcome of two meetings held Monday, January 11, and again Thursday, January 14, to discuss the recent closings of trails and roads not sanctioned as official ORVapproved trails in the Hiawatha National Forest.

About 30 people attended the meeting Monday at Big Boy restaurant in St. Ignace and about 40 attended Thursday's meeting at the St. Ignace Public Library, where it was decided to form the group.

The goal of Concerned Citizens for the Forest, according to Fred Schlehuber of St. Ignace Township, who organized the meetings, is to re-open all roads closed to ORVs in the past few years, repair the damage done to those trails when they were closed, and to open the whole of additional roads like Castle Rock Road and Round Lake Round to ORV traffic.

"What we want to do is just to get our privileges back," Mr. Schlehuber said. "I am sure the government thinks they are protecting our forests, but I think their interpretation of what that is is a little different from ours."

Crews contracted by the U.S. Forest Service have been systematically closing or blocking any trails not open according to federal policy, District Ranger Steve Christiansen has said. The Hiawatha published a mixed vehicle use map in 2007, which explains which roads and trails in the forest are legally open for ORV use, he said, based on a new forest plan adopted in 2006.

Straits Area Sportsman's Club President Louis Colegrove pointed out there was a posted meeting at Little Bear East Arena in St. Ignace when the most recent forest plan was created, and he said those are the exact sort of things a group like this needs to stay vigilant for, so its members can attend such a meeting and make their opinions known early on in the process.

Information about work getting underway to close the trails was published in The St. Ignace News November 12, 2009.

Mr. Christiansen said most of the areas that were closed have not been legally approved ORV trails for many years, but said he hoped after meeting with the group they could find a solution. Many of the areas were closed to ORV traffic in the 1986 forest plan, he said, a decision that has been upheld by the 2006 amended forest plan and a 2007 mixed-vehicle use map, which outlines which roads and trails in the national forest are open to ORV and other traffic. The mixed-vehicle use maps are available at local businesses and the Forest Service office on US-2, Mr. Christiansen said.

"I don't know that the solution is going to satisfy everybody, but the Forest Service is more than willing to work toward some sort of solution on this," he said. "Most of the areas we closed were not, and have not been for some time, legal to ride on. People have been riding on them. I think the perception was that they were open, but they were not."

Those who attended both meetings in support of the group's goal included representatives from the Straits Area Sportsman's Club, the Mackinac County Sportsmen's Off- Road Vehicle Association (MCSORVA), the Brevort Lake Association, and the Schaeffer Road Association.

The Mackinac County Board of Commissioners and the City of St. Ignace both passed resolutions at their most recent meetings in support of the organization's cause of getting the Forest Service to open the trails that were cl osed as well as portions of Round Lake and Castle Rock Roads.

The first plan to accomplish the goals of re-opening and fixing trails, Mr. Schlehuber said, would be to meet with Mr. Christiansen and other Forest Service leadership to present their case and request the changes. The group plans to meet with Mr. Christiansen Thursday morning, January 21, to discuss the issue.

"A lot of what we do will hinge on what happens Thursday," Mr. Schlehuber said. Some of the questions group representatives plan to ask Mr. Christiansen include what the reasoning is behind closing roads to ORVs, exactly what federal mandates require of the local district, what specific incidents of damage caused by ORVs led to the closing of each road, and what, if any, options there are to re-open these trails.

If the argument behind closing roads to ORVs is that riders do too much damage to the forest, he said, he would expect the Forest Service to have a list of logged incidents in which damage was found.

The second option could be to petition the U.S. Forest Service leadership or bring the issue to the attention of state and federal lawmakers representing the area.

"I do think it's going to take some hard work," Mr. Schlehuber said. "If we don't do our homework we aren't going to be able to do it."

Many of those attending the meetings brought up the possible consequence of a decrease in tourism owing to the road closures, something they said could be a huge economic detriment to the area.

"The closure of trails could result in tourists going somewhere else," Mr. Schlehuber said. "We can't close these trails and bring people into the area."

While their immediate attention is on the national forest, the group is also concerned about state and county access for ORVs .

Steve Dufresne of St. Ignace, president of MCSORVA, said two years ago a national group of ORV riders planned a trip to the Eastern Upper Peninsula, which could have brought in up to 400 visitors to the area for a weekend. The refusal by Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials to waive the fee for a special event permit deterred the group from coming, which Mr. Dufresne said has helped to create the perception that Michigan is anti- O RV.

"That was a big disappointment I had with the meeting, that there weren't more business people there," he said of the library meeting, although he said he was happy with the number of people who did come. "It seems to me that they would see this as a possible source of revenue."

When Mackinac County roads were opened to ORV traffic in 2005, he said, part of the agreement was that the county would revisit the issue yearly and bring any problems or concerns to the attention of Mr. Dufresne and MCSORVA. Since that time, Mr. Dufresne said he has only been approached with one situation of damage to a hill near Castle Rock ponds. In that situation, the damage was along Castle Rock Road, a Forest Service road and not a county road. Mr. Dufresne said since the county roads have been open there have been no issues or complaints brought to his attention on county roads.

The group of concerned riders and residents said they are willing to do whatever is necessary to get the trails back that many have been using for recreation and transportation for decades.

"These roads have been open for generations," Mr. Colegrove said.

"If we can't stop this sometime," Schaeffer Road resident Jon Matteson said, "then our kids won't be able to enjoy what we could enjoy."