What benefits, economic and otherwise, does the OI offer the local community?
The OI enjoys wide spread support from the local community for a variety of reasons: • Under the existing unmanaged recreation scenario in the Owyhee area, ORV users cross many of ranchers’ lands illegally. The OI would provide more resources for monitoring and regulating ORV use, curtailing illegal ORV trespass. • Designation of wilderness and wild and scenic rivers provides ranchers, the recreation community and the community at large more certainly regarding future land use decisions and tourism marketing. • The Conservation and Research Center created under the legislation will initiate landscape-scale programs to review, recommend and coordinate landscape conservation and research projects. The Center could provide opportunity for jobs in the area, as well as important regional ecological data. Additional economic opportunities would be available through cooperative agreements with Owyhee County regarding search and rescue programs and the enforcement of transportation plans.
