For those of us that are old enough to remember the old television series" Dragnet," there was a line which came out of that series that became part of TV folklore. It was a comment made quite frequently by Detective Joe Friday when he was interviewing witnesses to a crime scene. When the person being interviewed was straying well off track the detective, in a low, guttural voice, would always say, "Just the facts Ma'am/ Sir, just the facts."

How does this relate to the title of this article? Well, the parallel on the access issue is the fact that some people are completely off base when it comes to the numbers of roads in our Rocky Mountain Forest District that are closed to motorized traffic. They think they have the facts but in reality they don't -what they have is mostly hearsay.

It seems that every wildlife or environmentally oriented meeting I attend these days the subject of access comes up in one form or another. I've heard figures of 20 per cent, 30 per cent, and even 40 per cent of the roads in our region have some form of closure restrictions on them, preventing motorized traffic. To be perfectly frank, I had no idea what the actual numbers really were, and since, as I mentioned, access or lack of it is the subject of many a heated conversation at meetings, I decided to get "just the facts."

My first stop was the local Ministry of Environment office where I asked such questions as: how many kilometres of new logging roads are completed every year; "what percentage of those logging roads on Crown land are left open and closed; and what is the total percentage of all the backcountry roads in the East Kootenay which are now legally closed to motorized traffic?

This information is public, and although it took more time than I would have liked to acquire this material, I finally received it. I can tell you I was somewhat surprised by the data. I am now passing it on to you the reader so every person who recreates in the outdoors is armed with the correct information:

• In 2008/09 in the Rocky Mountain Forest District a total of 219.5 kilometres of roads were built. This does not include skid trails within blocks. As well 30 bridges were installed during this period. There was also reference to roads being "deactivated," however, the definition of a "deactivated" road is hydrologic stabilization, where cross ditches/water bars are established and culverts removed. However those types of deactivations make the roads still accessible to 4x4's and ATV use, and therefore are not closures.

I obtained information as well from Tembec, one of our most prominent forest companies in the region. This, too, is public information taken directly from their Annual Reports.

• Average kilometres of new roads built on crown land over three years: 154

• Average kilometres of road debuilt on crown land over three years: 12.4 km

• Average percentage of new roads that are debuilt or destroyed: 8.1

3. AMA's (All Motorized Access): 10.4 per cent of the area of the RMFD has AMA's established within. Some of the roads in the AMA's are open year round and others are closed either seasonally or year round, so the final number is less than four per cent of the roads are closed to motorized use.

4. VAHC's (Vehicle Access Hunting Closure): Approximately four per cent of the roads in the RMFD fall under VAHC and are only closed to motorized hunting. Other motorized activities such as berry picking, fishing, etc, are allowed.

In summary, less than eight per cent of the approximately 32,000 kilometres of roads in the Rocky Mountain Forest District are closed to motorized use within AMAs and VAHCs. That means, of course, that approximately 92 per cent of all current roads and new roads to be built to be built will likely be left open to motorized traffic.

Those are the facts, and now here are some of my observations and opinions on this much talked about issue:

Every year that goes by, the gap between motorized activities and non-motorized widens in terms of the overall numbers. In the next ten years, if the averages remain the same, hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres of new new roads will be opened in the RMFD and only approximately eight per cent will be classified as non-motorized. My feeling is that wildlife populations and the environment cannot sustain such pressure without suffering serious declines just a few years down the road, but we need to recognize that now, and start making changes.

The fairly recent explosion of ATV's has changed the game immeasurably. These machines, which can just about go anywhere, certainly cannot be ignored by wildlife managers. Twenty years ago, seeing someone on a quad in the backcountry was relatively rare. They are everywhere now, and just about everyone has one, including me. Road densities in our region are already far too high in some management units, but, after having said that, part of the misinformation being spread out there comes from people who recreate in units where the percentage of the road closures is much higher than the average of eight per cent. A good example would be the much talked about Flathead; there are a few too many closures in that region and some of them were instituted decades ago, but the rationale for closing them then is no longer valid today. Some other areas also fall into this category as well. So, there are some management units where roads can indeed be re-opened to achieve a more suitable balance.

Over on the other side of the coin though, are areas which have zero road closures and hundreds of kilometres of roads. Just to name a couple off-hand would be the Peavine/Cotton-Tie outside of Cranbrook and Etna Creek West of Moyie.

What we need managers to do in the future, in my opinion, is to strive for and achieve that better balance I mentioned, in order to accommodate diverse recreational opportunities for people, some who do like to walk or ride horses without being overrun by motorized vehicles, and most importantly, manage wildlife by science, not by politics as is so often done today. Then in the end, when things go wrong, its common practice to use some faceless, voiceless, bureaucrat in Victoria as a scapegoat for the mismanagement.

My sources in Victoria have been telling me for years that in terms of regulations in general, if the regional wildlife managers in an area refuse to sign off on a proposal from Victoria it simply doesn't happen. If that's changed recently then here is a great opportunity for some of our wildlife managers to speak out and set me and the record straight.

Speaking of politicians, I took all the information you just read to our MLA for Kootenay East, Bill Bennett, and asked him for his thoughts. Bennett said, "The wildlife managers' reasons for closing or decommissioning a road is sometimes controversial, because there is a difference of opinion between those who believe that road access is generally bad for wildlife, and those that believe wildlife can best be managed with hunting restrictions, rather than access restrictions. When a forest company has finished cutting in an area and its replanting has reached a 'free to grow' status, the Crown cannot afford to take over the maintenance costs or risks of a law suit. In these circumstances the company decommissions the road as part of the legal contract with government. This is a situation that engenders protest by those who want to use those roads, and what this means sometimes is that heavily used roads are closed. I chair the Resource Roads Committee with several other ministers, and we are looking at how resource roads in B.C. can be managed in a way that is fairer to the commercial users and of course to the general public."

I'll save the final comments on this issue of access for myself. There are people out there such as Bill Bennett is referring to that do really want unlimited access for motorized vehicles, believing that it won't hurt wildlife populations or affect the environment. They don't want any new roads or old roads closed and chant at times that "we want our land back." Today, there are areas in the RMFD that have hundreds of kilometres of new roads which didn't exist five or ten years ago, so they never had any access to begin with, other than by foot or horseback. How can you ask for something back, when you never had it in the first place?

I'm sorry, but as far I am concerned these individuals must not live on the same planet we do, or, they really do know the truth, but their self-serving agendas won't allow them to speak it, and they couldn't care less about wildlife populations, only about satisfying their own egos and personal objectives. All of the good responsible hunters and recreationalists I know, put the wildlife resource and the environment first, before personal agendas, and if it means closing a critical wildlife corridor or funnel area to protect a species at times when they can be very vulnerable, they agree to condone it, even if it means closing a road or trail that they had previous access to. It's easy you see, because they know it's the ethical thing to do, to ensure that we have healthy wildlife populations and protection for sensitive ecosystems, for generations to come.

You may agree or disagree with some or all of what I have said. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but one thing no one person or group can ignore are the facts - just the facts.