The National Park Service announced Monday that off-road vehicle use at Little River Canyon National Preserve will cease on Sept. 1.  

“We understand this announcement will be disappointing to many people in the community who are used to being able to drive their all-terrain vehicles on the Preserve’s roads,” said Preserve Superintendent John Bundy. “This change is necessary, though, to ensure the Preserve is complying with federal and state laws.”  

As part of the Preserve’s general management planning process, NPS planners reviewed applicable laws, policies and regulations. “As we were going through that process we realized that we could no longer allow ATV use as it is currently permitted,” Bundy said. “Although limited ATV use has occurred here since this land was set aside as a national preserve, we are actually restricted from allowing it.”  

Executive Order 11644, issued by President Nixon on Feb. 8, 1972, directly governs the use of ORVs and ATVs, including vehicles driven on roads, in units of the National Park System. This Executive Order and the NPS regulations established under it, prohibit the use of such vehicles on roads within National Park System units.  

“In the past, we have closed environmentally sensitive areas to ATV access in order to fulfill our resource protection obligations,” Bundy said. “After consulting with legal counsel and many stakeholders about this important issue we determined that, to be in conformance with the law, we can no longer permit ATV use in the backcountry or on park roads.”  

The NPS was given a dual mission by Congress when the agency was established in 1916: to conserve resources and to provide for enjoyment of those resources by such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations. NPS management decisions seek to balance use and preservation.  

The development of a Backcountry Management Plan could review visitor uses and identify some locations or trails for ATV/ORV use that does not impair resources,” Bundy said. “That would allow them to return to the preserve in a limited fashion.”  

The NPS plans to ensure that the public is notified well in advance of the closure by posting signs, putting notices in newspapers, and posting information on its website.