Real Threat to Pismo / Oceano Dunes - CALL to ACTION

[MI-FL Offroader]

No experience with the dunes, but it's very similar in my coastal community concerning trash. And this has nothing to do with off road rec. It's just the city pigs from Orlando coming to our beaches and causeway system across the bays and lagoons, and being the pigs that they are. Completely disgusting. Alcohol trash, food, dirty diapers. Been going on for decades.
95% of the people I wheel with are responsible in their trash management, and the ones that aren't get a thrashing.
Sucks that a decades old tradition at your dunes has to get screwed like this.

 

[SMS81]

No it isn't. It's a cultural problem, period. I live in Big Bear. No sand dunes and very little off roading, but the last year there has been a huge increase in tourist activity. They all figure that can act like this is their own back yard. They all figure since the city pays people to pick up trash in their city, it must be that way every where else. right? Saw this happen on the Upper Kern River in the 1990s. Once the city folks figure out how to get there, they trash it. I mean, they don't have to live there, they only come to visit then leave the mess behind. Has nothing to do with the off road culture.

I agree that this is a cultural problem, the brunt of the load falls on the shoulders of the offroad community culture. This thread is a perfect example, it has been around for a couple years and only has 3k views. That is less than a utv class debate that was started last week! Using RDC as a good sample pool of off-roaders, this tells me the majority of off-roaders dont really give a crap about preserving or defending Offroad or even wasting time to read about it. I’m sure this is a direct crossover in the way they treat these areas as well. Preservation of lands should be our #1 goal so we can continue to recreate, this is clearly not the case. How we change this behavior, I do not know.

 

[Bro_Gill]

I have been fighting land use wars since the 1980s. Actively, passively, etc... You can't blame trash and lack of support to prevent loss of use as the same/ While I wish there was more active support from users and those who gain financially from the sport, I also know it is those who participate in the sport that do the most to clean up trash, keep trails maintained, etc... Meanwhile, money paid by those who participate in the sport is being used to actively end access to and close access to lands we recreate on via the green sticker fund through grants process. Pismo is a perfect example of this. USFS also uses green sticker funds to pay for studies to close areas and EVERY federal agency uses green sticker grants in California to pay for studies to create new ACECs. Again, the trash comes from every group out there that has dimwits and idiots that participate. It isn't an off road thing, but when it happens, and it just happens in or near an off road area, they will say it is off roaders that did it an use it as ammo to shut down access. No different than shooters destroying places with their shot up crap, usually in off road access areas. Guess who gets the blame.