The Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance Conservation Hub is a source for all manner of information on conservation issues of public concern. While much of the information it presents is public information, that public information is scattered among different locations. The Conservation Hub brings the information together and presents it in a way that is easy to understand.

One of the projects that the Conservation Hub has undertaken is All Terrain Vehicles on public lands. If you want pictures, there are pictures. If you want to know what it costs to build a trail or maintain one, that information is there. If you want to know what impact ATVs have on wildlife, water quality, or endangered species, that information is there. You want maps, they’ve got maps.

The nutshell version of the Conservation Hub’s presentation on ATVs (a position which the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy shares) is this:

• Our public lands are places of rest, solitude, peacefulness, and refuge, not the noise and disruption that come with Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs).
• ORV advocates promote one use of public lands while damaging the other values that our public lands have. ORVs don’t fit with the traditional non-motorized uses of our public lands.
• Protective rules that have long been established for our public lands would have to be substantially relaxed to allow ORV use.
• There are documented impacts of ORV use on soil, vegetation, water, air, wildlife, and people. 
• There are numerous examples of the cost for constant repair and restoration where ORVs have been used.
• There is a demonstrated need for constant monitoring/policing of the activities where ORVs are used. Who would pay the costs of such monitoring/policing?

To see all the information, visit: https://conservation-abra.hub.arcgis.com/pages/wv-publiclands-orv