Interior Secretary’s Emphasis on Responsible Public Lands Management Draws Praise from Sportsmen

Sportsmen’s priorities for the management of America’s public lands and waters figured prominently in remarks made today by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership applauding Jewell’s calls to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, protect the nation’s special places, and uphold economic sectors dependent on federal public lands.

“Sportsmen appreciate Secretary Jewell’s call to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which, along with other key conservation programs, is critically important to maintaining our nation’s hunting and fishing traditions,” said Whit Fosburgh, TRCP president and CEO. “Our ability to continue enjoying both our publicly owned natural resources and our outdoors way of life – not to mention the recreation-based economy that relies on them – hinges on these programs being strongly funded.”

The TRCP also commended Jewell’s recognition of the existence of “special places” that need protection. In terms of land management, Jewell acknowledged that inherent tensions exist in balancing development with conservation. She said that the answer is development in the right ways and the right places and noted that some places are “too special to develop,” all points made consistently by the TRCP and many of its partners.
Joel Webster, director of the TRCP Center for Western Lands, agreed with Jewell’s statement that “demands are greater than ever” on our public lands.

“Sportsmen know special places first hand, and we are engaged in BLM land use planning processes across the West to help conserve some of America’s last, best, publicly accessible hunting and fishing areas,” said Webster. “As the agency continues its work to balance a range of activities on these lands, including energy production as well as recreation, meaningful conservation of special places – where the best and highest uses are fish and wildlife habitat and dispersed recreation such as hunting and fishing – must take center stage. To that end, we strongly encourage the Department of the Interior to commit to conserving intact and undeveloped BLM lands across the West – lands that provide key habitats and high quality sporting opportunities.”

During her speech, the secretary made her first secretarial order, which calls for a department-wide mitigation strategy. Jewell said that order addresses the Interior Department’s effort to encourage balanced development and ensure landscape-level planning.

“Sportsmen are encouraged by Secretary Jewell’s interest in promoting landscape-level planning and mitigation when it comes to the special places that are most important to our hunting and angling traditions,” said Ed Arnett, director of the TRCP Center for Responsible Energy Development. “The fact remains that solid, strategic planning on a macro level will resolve many of the conflicts and problems we’ve been seeing over the energy planning and development process. BLM and DOI simply need to commit to doing it.”

Source

The TRCP is the group who is always going to the Republicans and who are referred to as moderates and even sometimes as a conservative organization.

Yet, they want to spend almost a billion dollars a year on land acquisition, i.e. they want the size of government to grow.  More land for the feds in spite of the fact the feds own 640 million acres (and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals) or roughly 30% of the land in the U.S.  Further, report after report shows these lands are either mismanaged or they don't have the resources to properly manage them.  That being the case, why would any reasonable person suggest we need more?  Hunting is already banned in most  national parks, and mark my words, will eventually be banned on most federal land.  That means the TRCP is actually promoting a policy that is against the long term best interest of hunters.

We all know that "Special Places" means more Wilderness and more National Monuments.  Guess where the first places will be that they ban hunting?  After all, these places are special.  First will be the ammo used, followed by an outright ban on hunting.

I've been around hunters all my life and terms and phrases like "landscape-level planning and mitigation" and "strategic planning on a macro level" have never crossed their minds or poured from their mouths.  Let's face it, the TRCP is primarily an org for corporate America and trust fund babies. They can afford to do the travel, rent the equipment and hire the guides to take them to these "special places" and they'll be the ones who will go to Latin America, Africa or other foreign areas to hunt after they screw it up here for the rest of us.