Muddy off-highway vehicle conspiracies continue
Aldo Leopold, the dean of ecological thinking, observed that when his bird dog Gus could find no pheasants to point, would point other birds, like meadowlarks, with a whipped up zeal for unsatisfactory substitutes. Some vocal members of the Alberta Off Highway Vehicle Association (AOHVA) are acting like Gus. When they can’t mount a credible response to the science behind off highway vehicle (OHV) restrictions they turn to extreme and unfounded conspiracy theory about the conservation community. This is classic displacement behaviour.
The latest in this absurd twisting of reality is the contention Alberta’s conservation groups, and presumably I and the many, many other Albertans who support responsible land use are “green decoys,” bent on radical, secretive social manipulation through deceptive land-use planning, leading to expulsion of all Albertans from the Eastern Slopes.
Oh, and all this is directed and funded by some clandestine American source, so cloaked it cannot be revealed.
This is tinfoil hat stuff, coupled with antennas tuned to something that doesn’t exist. This program of disinformation is something Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, perfected – if you tell a big lie, often enough and stick to it, someone will believe it.
For those OHV users who have a hard time swallowing this stuff, and for the vast majority of Albertans who don’t use OHVs, a quick scan of the facts might be in order. Alberta’s conservation organizations are staffed by mild-mannered but passionate people, working in the public interest for clean water, fish and wildlife and healthy, beautiful landscapes. Not a single Dr. Strangelove, bent on world domination, in the bunch.
Many, like me, are unpaid volunteers. Paid staff subsist on salaries significantly less than comparable positions in industry and government, often in the midst of areas with high costs of living. Their offices are far from palatial and on a visit you will often find cramped quarters, secondhand furniture, shared desks, old photocopiers, mediocre coffee, but lots of enthusiasm. It is laughable to suggest these are hotbeds of foreign influence and funding.
Donors, whether Canadian or not, realize conservation transcends borders. For many imperiled species, working on an ecosystem basis, regardless of administrative or political boundaries, is good science.
What limited outside funding is available is used to benefit conservation work in Alberta. Those funds are scrupulously documented with the Canada Revenue Agency and available for public review. If only AOHVA would be as transparent, we might see the financial support and influence of commercial dealerships selling mostly foreign-made OHVs.
AOHVA’s whipped up zeal to discredit the conservation community (and a legion of landowners, ranchers, hunters, anglers and hikers) is a concerted effort to de-legitimize the arguments for evidencebased decision making, for the greater public interest and values to be part of land-use planning and decisions.
It is the height of Trumped-up hypocrisy to use techniques imported from American alt-right organizations in an attempt to sway public opinion about OHV restrictions while castigating Alberta’s conservation community for alleged American influences.
Disinformation techniques work for special interest groups like AOHVA on the principle that the amount of energy needed to refute the lies is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce them. AOHVA says, “It is a proven fact that designed, engineered trail systems mitigate environmental concerns.” Yet, when asked for the evidence, AOHVA points vaguely to an American group, the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council.
Their U.S. allies provide no answers and a search of the relevant literature shows only what Alberta’s Chief Scientist has already concluded: OHVs are hard on the environment. But AOHVA stubbornly sticks to its statement, perhaps hoping repetition can change reality.
While attempting to portray the conservation community as some kind of green decoy for a dark conspiracy found only on the internet, AOHVA reveals itself as a muddy decoy group.
Their much vaunted four-point plan for environmentally responsible OHV use is meant to divert attention away from the immensity of OHVrelated damage. It downplays the noise and displacement of other recreational users and represents the veiled purpose to intensify OHV use, as if there is no other value to public lands.
Facts don’t seem to matter for the extremist element of AOHVA. It is as if we have entered the Twilight Zone with a disingenuous parlour trick to divert attention away from the real issues. As Rod Serling, the sci-fi writer, warned viewers of the 1960s TV series, “The Twilight Zone”: “You are about to enter another dimension É A journey into a wondrous world of imagination.”
AOHVA’s attempt to further muddy the waters with a non-existent conspiracy is classic fear-mongering as taught by U.S.-based political extremists. Some Albertans might be sucked in by this, but most will see it as a work of fiction and not be fooled by this muddy decoy group.