Since January of 2006 a working group comprised of various stakeholders with an interest in the issues surrounding mountain biking on crown land in British Columbia have met several times with staff from the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts. The mandate of the group was to come up with a policy that would address the key issues and identify a process that would allow for mountain bike trails to become authorized under a consistent policy framework by the province.
On October 26th a draft policy was released along with a background document detailing the key issues and objectives, the main policy features and the process undertaken to create the policy. The issues include trail location, unsafe structures, and user and resource conflicts. The objectives reflect the desire to allow mountain biking to continue on crown land using improved management practices and to support economic opportunities for tourism.
The draft policy will be implemented on a pilot basis with several communities around the province over the next two years. The pilot communities identified are: Squamish, Chilliwack, Burns Lake, Terrace, Nelson, Invermere, Kamloops and Williams Lake.
Click here to view the current operational policy document (updated May 2013).