In Misty Edgecomb’s article, “Woodland sales spur use debates” (BDN, Dec. 2), she twice quotes people who say that free use of others’ land for hunting, fishing and other recreational uses is a right. One of those quoted was Pat McGowan, the current conservation commissioner who should know better.

It isn’t and never has been a right. It is a privilege and a tradition that we have enjoyed ever since Maine was settled.

In the old days, Maine had vast underutilized woodlands and management consisted of trying to control wildfires and clear-cutting patches for a single species of wood such as pine and then spruce and fir. Now management has to be much more intense due to the pressure for a reasonable return on the investment.

After World War II, bulldozed roads were pushed into the woods to access species of wood that couldn’t be floated out in the streams. When fir and spruce pulpwood was forced out of the waters by the courts, it really spurred road building and thus access to the north woods.

With their vast new private road system pretty much open to the public, “free access” to the land began an era of motorized use and abuse by the public. About 40 years ago four-wheel-drive pickup trucks started appearing on the market and were pretty much owned by the few woodsmen who needed and could afford them. Now everybody and his half-brother has one, and he feels he has the right to go anywhere his wheels will take him.

A little later, snowmobiles came on the scene and the riders caused a lot of problems for landowners until they became civilized and formed clubs to manage legally established trails with landowner permission.

The latest recreational vehicle to come on the scene is the all-terrain vehicle. This vehicle is very close to being a personnel tank, and may be the last straw for many landowners that are striving to keep their lands open. All over the state landowners are outraged by damage being done by this new means of motorized trespass.

It really is a mistake by ATV owners, dealers and manufacturers not to recognize the degree of animosity that some landowners have for these machines and irresponsible riders. It’s a popular thing to say it’s just a few bad apples who are causing the problems, but in my experience nearly every rider who strays off his own land or one of the few legal trails is breaking laws and causing damage.

Woodland ownership is getting to be a burden that is increasingly hard to justify.

We build and maintain roads for our own use and they are damaged and destroyed by thoughtless use by others. We maintain boundary lines and have to worry about timber trespass and blown-down timber resulting from opening up of the neighbor’s forest.

Then Mother Nature has a way of changing our management plans by throwing extremes of weather at us. And there are insect and disease problems, and not to be forgotten is the myriad of new regulations coming at us from our friends in Augusta.

In short, woodland is selling for prices that make it hard to justify holding on to for wood production. The major landowners have seen the light and are letting new owners face the challenges. Many small landowners hold forest properties for reasons other than just small investment, and probably will continue to do so.

Sometimes we get the feeling we own and manage the land for the sake of our neighbors and the recreating public who use it.

In my way of thinking, free access to the woodlands of Maine doesn’t mean by motorized vehicles. If private agreements can be reached with user groups and landowners for access then that’s the way it should be done.

User groups quote figures of hundreds of millions of dollars that their sport brings to the economy of Maine. Maybe some of those dollars should be directed back to the landowners who are providing a playground. Laws need to be enforced.

The new ATV law will cure most of the problems of this new activity if compliance can be achieved. Without more cooperation between the landowners and user groups, in conjunction with more vigorous enforcement of the laws to protect the landowner’s rights, there will certainly be more land that will be posted off-limits to everyone.

James R. LaCasce is a landowner, a Christmas tree grower, and a licensed forester who lives in Dover-Foxcroft.