Unfortunately, there is an epidemic that is slowly ending recreation as we know it. It is spreading quicker than a fire down a river of gasoline. Our public lands are falling victim to it acre by acre. More and more forests are succumbing to the effects of it everyday. Is it the beetle? Is it wild fires? No, this plague that is threatening our public lands is of the human controlled variety. It is a condition known as apathy. Its symptoms may go unnoticed, but its effects are often irreversible.

There are many groups that want all but a few elitists off public lands. These groups often use the guise of “saving the environment” to appeal to their audiences. This is where apathy sits and waits for the right time to infiltrate its victims. Most people have short attention spans and apathy thrives on this. The Anti-Recreationists bank on this fact and saturate their audience with sad stories about some “rare” frog needing 10 million square acres to reproduce or the world will stop turning. In the meantime the audience disregards the fact that this “rare” frog is found in 10 other parts of the world. The Anti-Recreationists use scare tactics to capitalize on apathetic persons. There is scientific evidence which shows that many, if not the vast majority, of their claims are completely opposite of the truth. How come we are still losing public lands every day when this is the case? The Anti-Recreationists play the apathy card, that’s why. They know on any given day more people will take the time to read about whatever BS they print and mass mail, than will take the time to locate the real facts and call them to question and do the research and make an educated decision. They know recreationists have better things to do than write letters or make phone calls. They are banking on the fact that you’d rather be out wheeling or wrenching than at a local USFS meeting. They know that 90% of recreationists feel that something not directly affecting their form of recreation doesn’t warrant any action on their part because it’s “someone else’s problem.” NEWS FLASH – Its everyone’s problem. Until we realize there are not separate forms of recreation, each and every one of us will continue to lose. Your children will lose. You lose. Either you are a Recreationist or you are not. If you are you had better pull your head out and get in gear preserving what we have left, before the Discovery Channel is our only way to get in touch with nature. We are one.

I hate to draw the correlation between the tragic September 11 attacks on our home soil on, but remember how the whole world took a step back when we became the UNITED States of America again. For the first time in a long time we were one. Everyone stood up and took notice. We all put aside our differences and united for a common purpose. We had the attention of the entire world when we became one, so getting the attention of the local and federal land agencies should be a snap. WE are in charge of our lands, not some left wing nut cases working with an elitist agenda. It’s time we took our land back from the Extremists, before you have to explain to your children what was so important that you couldn’t protect their future.

How will you answer this question when asked by your son or daughter? Will you be able to stand there and look them straight in the eye and tell them you did all you could to preserve public access to public lands? Maybe they’ll accept it unquestionably when you tell them you didn’t have time to attend a meeting, write a letter, or even make a free phone call? Surely they will acknowledge the fact that you didn’t feel it was necessary to support your local Pro-Access organizations. Maybe they'll believe you when you tell them you couldn't afford $20 a year as you load the extra 3 cases of beer into your beat and battered truck that you've got a $5K stereo in? They’ll understand when you tell them you thought it didn’t include “your type” of recreation, so it didn’t concern you?

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