The Bureau of Land Management's new National Off-Highway Vehicle Strategy would restrict vehicle use in wilderness study areas to roads and trails that existed when the study areas were first identified.
The national strategy was released Monday on the Internet www.blm.gov.
In Utah, it would apply to all 20 million acres of BLM land, but much of the attention has focused on the 3.2 million acres of wilderness study areas in southern Utah.
Off-highway vehicle groups had asked the BLM to recognize routes that had been created since the areas were established, while environmental groups wanted the BLM to close all routes inside the areas to OHVs.
"Our policy here is trying to be consistent through all the WSAs and how we manage them," said Doug Koza, deputy state BLM director for natural resources. "At a minimum, people need to use the trails and ways that were in existence when the WSAs were established."
Koza said the BLM would make further restrictions, including closures in wilderness study areas, on a case-by-case basis.
"If use on trails and ways is causing sufficient damage to impair the future designation of wilderness, we have various options we can use," Koza said. "We can limit access, limit the use season, or we can close them."
Copies of the document will be available at BLM offices Friday, and the BLM will take public comments until Jan. 3, 2001.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which pushed for complete vehicle closures of wilderness study areas, said the BLM's strategy fails to preserve the wilderness characteristics of these areas by allowing any OHV use.
The draft proposal "calls for a lot of business as usual," said Heidi McIntosh, the alliance's conservation director.
Adena Cook, public lands director for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an OHV-advocacy group based in Pocatello, Idaho, said the BLM should have recognized that vehicle use in those areas doesn't have to be considered detrimental to wilderness characteristics.
"It would close trails that were established, developed or built since the WSAs were inventoried," Cook said.
But Cook said the BLM strategy is generally positive toward OHV users, adding, "It demonstrates that the agency believes OHVs are an appropriate use on public lands."