“The Branch is opposed to all forms of cycling on all roads, trails and tracks in wilderness areas, and the policy intent should take the same approach so that Plans of Management do not allow it”
— National Parks Association of New South Wales
“The environmental disadvantages of introducing mountain biking tourism to an area are invariably understated, or not stated at all. This is a great disservice to local environments that often include threatened Australian native plants, mammals, birds, reptiles and invertebrates. This is bad news:
⦁ Bikes trails fragment, degrade and disturb wildlife habitats
⦁ Bikes can spread serious plant diseases such as Phytophthora
⦁ Bikes can cause erosion and siltation of creeks
⦁ Bikes can spread weeds through native bushland
⦁ Bikes can disturb nesting animals such as the endangered (in Tasmania) Wedge-tailed eagle
⦁ Bikes can disturb/destroy micro-habitats for smaller animals such as the endangered Blind Velvet Worm
⦁ Bikes can disturb habitat for threatened Eastern quolls, now extinct on mainland Australia and declining in Tasmania
Scientific Literature on Environmental Impacts
conservat-sci-and-prac-2020-naidoo-relative-effects-of-recreation
2013-hardiman-and-burgin-mtn-biking-downhill-for-the-environment-or-chance-to-up-a-gearDownload
How Networks of Informal Trails
Cause Landscape Level Damage to VegetationDownload
Service Cycling Policy Review
& Sustainable Mountain Biking StrategyDownload
Outdoor recreation causes effective habitat reduction in
capercaillie Tetrao urogallus:
a major threat for geographically restricted populationsDownload
Using Functional Traits to Assess
Impacts to the resistance of Subalpine Grassland
to Trampling by Mountain Biking and Hiking Download
Recreational trampling
negatively impacts vegetation structure
of an Australian biodiversity hotspotDownload
The impacts of trail infrastructure
on vegetation and soils:
Current literature and future directionsDownload
Response of
White-bellied Sea-Eagles Haliaeetus leucogaster
to encroaching human activities at nest sitesDownload
Is the evolving sport of
mountain biking compatible
with fauna conservation in national parks?Download
Environmental Impacts of Mountain Biking 