There is a solution, cut down all the trees and put in a ball golf course. Many public lands have been used this way. Or we could cut down all the trees and put in soccer fields, or a baseball diamond.
Disc golf is by definition fairly low impact. Yep, there are cases where disc golf inherits a park that has been abused, i.e. everything cut down, and does it's best with it, but that doesn't go on the disc golf card. The notion that disc golfers are doing all of this damage, relative to anthing else, including hiking is spurious at best. Only someone who has not hiked in a truly popular hiking area really thinks that what happens on a disc golf course, compares.
I grew up hiking in the Pacific Northwest, and my father, a conservative Repulican, insisited that we had an obligation to take care of the woods. We picked up everything, caught and released unless we were gonna eat it right then, and generally worked to keep the parks and trails clean. All hikers get off trail at some point, I saw it growing up and did some myself. I camped, winter and summer, in the White Mountains on the Apalachian Trail. I saw many hikers off trail, camping and messing around, and often enough, I found their litter. Overall, since they spread their activities wider, it looks like the harm and bad behavior is less than what one might see on a disc golf course. To the point, humans are humans, some are good, some are lazy, and some are down right idjits. Whether the human in question is a disc golfer, a hiker, or Betty Boop who's gotten lost in the woods matters not.
People see things and they make assumptions, in this case, the assumption is that disc golfers, that is the royal all of them disc golfers, are making a hash of this area. The total number of broken branches I've seen due to hiker activity is significantly greater than that of disc golfers, of course I've spent more of my life hiking than disc golfing. What makes it obivous is that the shanks who did this all did it in one area, on a disc golf course. The truth is that no real disc golfer would do such a thing. Only a rookie, would do this, because experienced players feel they are changing the course. That is, an inexperienced player sees that branch as being in his way, and experienced player sees it as part of the course. I might speculate that a course near a hiking area is more likely to be played by an inexperienced disc golfer, experienced hiker, than a rookie disc golfer.... That is, the assumption that damage in such an area was done by the disc golf communmity, as opposed to a hiker might be spurious.
Disc golfers as a community are one of the better ones. I see more posts about cleaning up, maintaining, and fixing course areas, so as to lower impact, than I've ever seen in the hiking community. Yes, there jerks in the sport, but as a sport, the members work really hard to lower their impact, and control those who misbehave. To my knowledge there is no similar menality as a group goal in the hiking community. I might suggest that hikers would be better served to consider this goal than worrying too much about disc golfers.
As an aside, when I grew up hiking you could drink from any stream in the mountains. Now, they are all contaminated with giardia. That happened becasue hikers didn't take the time to dig a small hole, away from the water, and bury their crap.
