Our Story
Arizona Backcountry Explorers is a pro-motorized access independent media company dedicated to promoting adventure and engaging the public in National Environmental Policy Act procedures that close or restrict the use of motorized roads in Arizona.
Arizona Backcountry Explorers originally started as a Facebook group in 2016 by Kevin Allard to find new friends to explore the Arizona Backcountry. After establishing one of the most active Facebook groups dedicated to exploring Arizona’s public lands, we slowly morphed into the most engaging motorized access advocacy group in the United States. We are the only pro-motorized access advocacy group in Arizona with the ability to engage hundreds of thousands of motorized users.
We have developed this initiative to involve users of motorized public lands in policy changes, such as Travel Management Planning, Resource Management Planning, National Recreation Trails, and other federal designations and decisions regarding local public lands.
In late 2018, we set our sights on radical environmental policies that threatened thousands of miles of Arizona backroads and recreation areas. During this time, we played an instrumental part in a collaborative effort to stop over 10,000 miles of permanent road closures. We engaged thousands of people across the country, and with the help of local politicians and 4×4 clubs, the issue eventually reached Washington, DC, resulting in congressional nullification of the Bureau Of Land Management Resource Management 2.0.
Our first website, AZBackcountryExplorers.com, was developed to make an impact in the digital world and establish a fresh approach to advocating for motorized access. Through promoting adventure, we have successfully positioned ourselves among local adventure seekers. We have cultivated a strong passion for preserving motorized access to dispersed campsites, active mining claims, private property, and other crucial RS 2477 roads. As a result, our website has become a central hub for engaging in land use policy discussions for all of Arizona.
Making the public participation process easy for motorized users
We understand that federal land managers often create barriers to public participation in land management policies. With almost two decades of experience in engaging with land use policy and studying radical political ideologies, we are able to identify inconsistencies, evaluate data, and present it in an easily understandable format for everyone. Throughout our work, we have facilitated nationwide engagement in these public policy processes, while also acknowledging the long-standing involvement of various local 4×4, motorcycle, and UTV clubs in these procedures for many years.
Our Goals
Promote
Promote adventure and establish our backroads as an economic resource for rural Arizona communities.
Engage
Engage motorized users and establish opposition to policy decisions that threaten rural Arizona.
Unite
Unite agriculture, small miners, and outdoor recreation to shape state and federal policy outcomes.
Empower
Empower our community and provide the tools to safeguard the traditional Arizona way of life.
Outdoor recreation is vital to rural Arizona.
We believe that outdoor adventure is the best way enthusiasts can support rural Arizona. By promoting adventure, we establish the knowledge and recreational value of our backroads among motorized users. This allows us to generate opposition to future closures and turn our backroads into a vital economic resource for rural towns across Arizona.
We acknowledge that land use policy is shifting from land-use rights to environmental protection. As this takes place, motorized users are losing the legal right to use motorized roads on public lands. By working with other groups like Ranchers, Miners, Landowners, and others who own real property, we establish legal standing for motorized users to defend our right of way over the earth.
Who we are
Simply put, we are a group of ordinary people who call Arizona home. We are the rural working class of motorized enthusiasts, hikers, wildlife photographers, hunters, anglers, miners, ranchers, and private landowners who all have one thing in common: our natural right to access and occupy the earth.
Our Principles
Following the teachings of our Founders, we can examine a time in U.S. history when land use was dominated by a handful of wealthy families nurtured by special contracts with King George III. The Landed Gentry, similar to today’s land management agencies, dominated massive swaths of land and prohibited the settlement of the land, use of its resources, and freedom to travel west of the proclamation line.
We believe that the use of the unclaimed land of the United States is a natural and inalienable right endowed by our creator. We are advocates for the local and exclusive jurisdiction of federal land, states’ rights, and the US Constitution. By applying these principles to land use advocacy, we touch on the foundations of Western American society to preserve the fundamental states’ rights we hold as citizens of the United States of America.
Right to Way
We believe that every person has the natural right to freely travel across the unclaimed land and water of the United States on foot, by boat, in a motor vehicle, or using beasts of burden.
Right to Occupy
We believe that every person has the natural right to occupy unclaimed land and public places in the United States.
Right to Use
We believe that every person has the natural right to utilize the resources provided by the unclaimed land of the United States in a balanced manner.
Right to Assemble
We believe that roads are a fundamental part of the First Amendment and the right to assemble and have, since ancient times, been used by the public to facilitate modes of communication and commerce.
