SEDONA, Arizona — A consortium of five cities, counties, states and federal agencies has launched a major effort to reduce off-highway vehicle damage and obstruction in the Sedona area. The effort is the first focus of a larger effort called the Greater Sedona Recreation Collaborative (GSRC), whose members include the City of Sedona, Yavapai County, Arizona Wildlife Service, Arizona State Parks and Trails, and Red Rock Coconino National Forest. Includes Ranger. area.
This collaboration was established last year to explore potential solutions to a variety of outdoor recreational problems in the region. To date, the group has identified five concerns that should ultimately be addressed, including motorized recreation, non-motorized recreation, distributed camping, cultural impact mitigation, and environmental damage mitigation. Funding for this project comes from the City of Sedona, Arizona State Parks and Trails, and the Coconino National Forest Red Rock Ranger District.
The Electric Recreation Working Group began meeting in January as the recreation cooperative’s first working group. We are mainly looking at the problems and methods of mitigating disturbances and environmental damage caused by off-highway vehicles (OHV). The working group includes 25 partners drawn from cooperating agencies, local outdoor organizations, OHV rental companies, local residents, political leaders, local landlords and law enforcement officers.
The group has developed a series of action teams to address the individual elements of this complex issue. Our current action teams include Communication and Education, Policy and Law, Data Collection and Monitoring, Conservation and Restoration, and Sustainable Financing. Additional teams are expected to be developed as the need for more action is identified.
The overall process is facilitated by Southwest Decision Resources (SDR), a team of facilitation and collaboration experts based in Flagstaff.
In addition to the increasing attractiveness of OHV use on roads, trails and other open lands in the greater Sedona region, population growth in the neighborhood is increasing the level of environmental damage to the area’s fragile resources. Increased noise, dust, and speed disturbances in and around cities increase overall management and regulatory challenges. The impact extends beyond city, county, state, and federal jurisdictional boundaries, further complicating problem resolution.
GSRC members recognize that recreational management is complex across jurisdictions and understand that management strategies implemented in one area often have implications for other areas and stakeholders. . Therefore, it was imperative that the public and private sectors worked together to develop processes to best address these issues.
This is not the first time a group has formed to try to address local OHV problems. There have been at least three initiatives so far, and several steps have been taken by individual agencies and organizations. But the Electric Recreation Working Group is the most comprehensive, collaborative, and structured effort to date.
Even with these efforts, group members recognize that identifying and implementing successful actions to mitigate OHV impacts around Sedona will be a long process.
