[Az-Geocaching] Happy National Public Lands Day!

Sat, 28 Sep 2002 22:23:48 -0700 (PDT)

Thanks to Steve, Larry and all the others who took the time to participate in this important meeting, and give us a report. Great work!
Thanks,
Trisha "Lightning"
Press-kitt

On Sat, 28 September 2002, "Team Tierra Buena" wrote:

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An interesting 
coincidence, perhaps, but today (Saturday the 28th) is National Public Lands 
Day. See <A 
href = "http://www.az.blm.gov/npld_showcase.htm">http://www.az.blm.gov/npld_showcase.htm</A>. 
I knew there was some kind of Public Land exhibit in downtown Phoenix yesterday, 
but I didn't know why. Now I know.
Chelby wrote 
earlier:
&gt; Well, 
I'm going to stop talking now...I know Steve is probably writing &gt; a huge summary of everything as we 
speak!:)
Actually, Steve 
spent the day catching up on some sleep and watching the Ryder Cup matches on 
TV. And I now see that several of those who attended have already posted some 
in-depth reports. I thank you all for those, and I'll just add a few 
observations here.
It's been said 
already, but I think the most important lesson we learned last night was that by 
and large, the land management agencies are fine with Geocaching, if we only 
follow our own rules! 
First, get 
permission. We no longer have any excuse to not do that. Don't know who to ask, 
or aren't sure what agency has jurisdiction? Ask here on the list server, or try 
the BLM's Public Lands Information Center in Phoenix (<A 
href = "http://azwww.az.blm.gov/PLIC.htm">http://azwww.az.blm.gov/PLIC.htm</A>). 
According to one of the BLM representatives at the meeting last night, that 
office should have contact information for just about any agency in the state. 

We know tribal lands 
are off-limits (and another thought: even if you got permission from tribal 
officials to place a cache on their lands, everyone who wanted to hunt it would 
have to get permission to visit it). Same for archaeological sites (more on that 
in a minute), and designated wilderness areas. As you've already read, the door 
was opened that NPS would at least entertain the idea of caches on their lands. 
We're still lucky enough to have millions of acres of public land in the state 
that we CAN use. The USFS representative invited cachers to consult with his 
office on cache placement. I can't quote what he said word-for-word, but he made 
a point of saying that the rangers probably know about lots of potential cache 
sites that we don't know about.
We've all been asked 
to take a more active role in education. Things like more emphasis on staying on 
trails, leave no trace, cache in trash out, etc. These are things you can 
mention in your cache descriptions when you place them. I'm planning to write to 
Jeremy to propose that new subscribers get an email with either a&nbsp; 
statement of the rules and policies or at least the links to where those 
policies can be found. (Could any of you here who are more recent subscribers to 
geocaching.com refresh my memory what kind of emails, if any,&nbsp;you DO get 
when you first enroll? Thanks.)
I'd ask all of you 
to consider reaching out to new cachers when you meet them on the trail or see 
them log one of your caches. I mentioned this about a week ago, but if you can 
help spread this around, particularly amongst cachers who perhaps don't visit 
this mailing list or this web site, it would be very helpful.
Something else we've 
been asked to do: If you're out in public lands and find, for example, an area 
where someone has dumped construction materials, or a vandalized area, or 
something similar, mark a waypoint where the damage is, and contact the 
responsible agency when you get back as to what you found and where it is. If we 
can be extra eyes for the agencies, it's to our mutual 
benefit.
On&nbsp;the 
situation with the archaeological sites and site stewards. As Ken described in 
his post, in this one case we appear to have a conflict between one agency that 
is encouraging people to visit a particular area, and another agency charged 
with minimizing visitation to that same area. I have visited&nbsp;the site in 
question and I agree with Ken's arguments in this situation. At the same time, I 
do recognize that the site stewards are trying to do what they've been charged 
to do. We will probably have to deal with situations like this on a case-by-case 
basis, but at least now we can discuss them directly with the appropriate 
people.
Finally, I'd like to 
remind everyone here that a lot of people probably learned about 
azgeocaching.com last night. They may be "stopping by" the listserv or even 
"settling in". What they read here will probably affect how they perceive 
Geocachers. You never know who, or even how many, may be reading over your 
shoulder.
Thanks to all the 
cachers who participated last night. I think we're seeing Geocaching coming of 
age in Arizona.
Steve Team Tierra Buena</DIV></div></HTML>

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Anyone can start from now and
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