Treading Lightly

We live in an age where decades-long abuse of our public lands has led to the closure of off-road trail networks all over the country, and the restriction of vehicles from parks. Ultimately this has come from lack of maintenance on high traffic trails that are affected by the watershed and individuals that believe they are above the rules and travel off designated trails into sensitive areas.

Tread Lightly! recognized that without a concerted effort to educate and promote responsible use, more closures were imminent. Tread Lightly! is an organization based out of the U.S. that partners with individuals and companies to lead a national initiative to protect and enhance recreation access and offer opportunities to promote outdoor ethics and good stewardship. They drive to balance the needs of people who enjoy outdoor recreation with the needs of maintaining a healthy ecosystem and wildlife population. The scope of their work spans every form of outdoor recreation from hunting and shooting to fishing bad boating, but they specialize in the responsible use of motorized vehicles.

Since its inception, Tread Lightly!’s positive messages of balancing outdoor ethics with recreation has reached more than 200 million people, and they dedicate more than $1 million a year in advertising space to help spread the message of Ride On Designated Routes. They also distribute their Restoration For Recreation stewardship program that helps keep the great outdoors beautiful, healthy and accessible by providing much needed resources for backlogged maintenance and education along with communication initiatives for maintaining sustainability. Recreation partnerships come entirely from voluntary contributions from the private sector, like Quadratec and their Quadratec Cares grants and FCA Jeep and their supplier pricing.

If you would like to join Tread Lightly! or learn more from them or their services, travel to their website.