On a similar note to Jim Redmond's message:

IZAAK WALTON LEAGUE NEWS RELEASE
 www.iwla.org/reports/atv.html

New Report Highlights Unethical Advertising Practices In ATV Industry
Izaak Walton League Calls For Advertising Changes To
Promote Responsible ATV Use & Protect Outdoor America

        The all-terrain vehicle (ATV) industry's advertising too often
promotes unethical and environmentally harmful use of its vehicles and a new
report released by the Izaak Walton League documents a troubling and
hypocritical pattern by ATV manufacturers who frequently fail to follow the
very advertising guidelines these companies have endorsed.

        The Izaak Walton League released the new report, Caught In The
TREADS: Unethical Advertising in the ATV Industry, today.

        "The League is not against the use and enjoyment of all-terrain
vehicles, as tools or toys," says Paul Hansen, the League's executive
director.  "Indeed, many of our members enjoy using these vehicles.  We are
against the promotion of ATV use that destroys the landscape.  This report
provides examples of how the ATV industry encourages unethical use of its
machines in ways that wreck important fish and wildlife habitat, and then
claim to adhere to reasonable advertising standards developed by Tread
Lightly!, an organization that includes many of these manufacturers as
members and says it's in business to stop this kind of promotion."

For many years public land managers, ATV manufacturers, and conservation
organizations have recognized that unethical and improper off-road use of
ATVs and other vehicles was having a devastating impact on America's public
lands.  Born in the U.S. Forest Service, Tread Lightly!, Inc., was
established as a non-profit organization in 1990 to build awareness and
advocate responsible recreational use of ATVs on the nation's lands and
waters.  One of the results:  Tread Lightly! established a set of guidelines
and a logo for ethical advertising by manufacturers.  The guidelines and
corporate members of Tread Lightly! are included in the report.

        "Too many times, these guidelines are being ignored by the same
manufacturers that have endorsed them," Hansen adds.  "At best, promoting
this kind of activity is hypocritical, at worst it is wrong.  The guidelines
are not being enforced and the Tread Lightly! trademark is not being
adequately protected."

        "What is shocking is the blatant misuse of the Tread Lightly! logo,"
says Daryl Ratajczak, the report's principal author and director of the
League's widely praised Outdoor Ethics program.  "The same ads that display
the Tread Lightly! logo also promote riding ATVs through streams and mud,
and both uses run counter to the very guidelines these manufacturers
support.  Some manufacturers are clearly trying to have it both ways."

        "In recent years, the Tread Lightly! logo has served some
manufacturers as little more than useful cover and a stamp of approval for
increasingly disturbing messages," says Jack Lorenz, former executive
director of the Izaak Walton League and a charter board member of Tread
Lightly!, who resigned in protest in 1992.  "It's not working and our
natural resources are paying a high price."

        Says Hansen: "The abuse and destruction of our public lands by some
ATV users must cease.  An end to the promotion of abuse by the manufacturers
of all-terrain vehicles would be a good start."

        To read Caught In The TREADS: Unethical Advertising in the ATV
Industry go to www.iwla.org/reports/atv.html, or contact the Izaak Walton
League at 301-548-0150.  The ATV report follows the publication of Caught In
The Wake, The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Personal Watercraft
in 1999.

The Izaak Walton League and its 50,000 members and supporters share our
nation's stewardship responsibilities and are dedicated to common-sense,
solution-oriented conservation benefiting the nation's wildlife, fisheries
and the watersheds they depend upon. The League was founded in 1922 and
maintains a national office in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and a Midwest Office
in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jeffrey M. Fleming
Director of Communications and Media Relations
The Izaak Walton League of America
707 Conservation Lane
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
301-548-0150 ext 215
301-548-9409 fax
703-858-5663 home
www.iwla.org

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