20 May Tread Lightly! and Partners want to Remind Outdoor Recreationists about Importance of Riding on Designated Routes this Holiday Weekend

Salt Lake City, Utah–May 20, 2015—In advance of the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend, Tread Lightly! and its partners in the “RIDE ON Utah” campaign want to remind the more than 250,000 owners of off-highway vehicles (OHV) to ride only on designated routes as open to OHVs.

In an effort to help keep Utah’s natural resources healthy, accessible and open to the public by minimizing environmental impacts and social conflicts associated with the use of motorized vehicles on public lands, Tread Lightly! encourages outdoor recreationists to follow these simple tips:

• Travel responsibly on roads, trails or areas designated as open to your mode of transportation.
• Respect the rights of others, including private property owners, all recreational trail users, campers and others so they can enjoy their recreational activities undisturbed.
• Educate yourself priort to a trip by obtaining travel maps and regulations from public agencies, planning for your trip, taking recreation skills classes, and knowing how to operate your equipment safely.
• Avoid sensitive areas such as meadows, lakeshores, wetlands and streams.
• Do your part by modeling appropriate behavior, leaving the area better than you found it, properly disposing of waste, minimizing the use of fire, avoiding the spread of invasive species and restoring degraded areas.

The RIDE ON Utah campaign is a collaboration between Tread Lightly! and multiple federal and state agencies established to communicate consistent messaging across boundaries promoting ethical and legal use of motorized vehicles on public lands. The agency partners working with Tread Lightly! on this concerted education and outreach campaign include the U.S. . Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Utah’s Division of State Parks and Recreation, Division of Wildlife Resources, and Utah’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.

RIDE ON Utah was officially launched on National Public Lands Day in September 2012. Since then, the campaign partners have worked to ensure nearly 4,000 miles of motorized trails (across 1.8 mil acres) in Utah stay open to the public.

As a leading national nonprofit committed to protecting recreation access through education, Tread Lightly! design the RIDE ON Utah campaign as a model program that could be implemented in other states across the nation.

The RIDE ON Utah campaign has already reached millions in Utah and the template was replicated in Wyoming last year. As many as seven more states plan to implement this program in the coming year.

About Tread Lightly!

Tread Lightly! is celebrating its 25^th anniversary as a national nonprofit organization in October 2015. Founded in 1990 through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, Tread Lightly! promotes responsible outdoor recreation through ethics education and stewardship programs.

Tread Lightly! has more than 70 official partners from various industries and is likely the nation’s only non-profit holding MOUs with every federal and state agency in the U.S. Tread Lightly!’s diverse member base enjoys a wide range of outdoor activities including hunting, angling, camping, boating, biking, four-wheeling and much more. Become a Tread Lightly! partner or member today and start supporting access, education and stewardship at www.treadlightly.org.

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