The Green Sportsman

New Mexico’s storied Valle Vidal has been protected from oil and gas drilling thanks to a bi-partisan effort in Congress.

I say again, New Mexico’s storied Valle Vidal has been protected from oil and gas drilling thanks to a bi-partisan effort in Congress.

That’s worth repeating because there are two important stories here. Priceless fish and wildlife habitat has been spared unnecessary demolition by the energy industry. And congressmen proved what some of us have been preaching for years: Conservation is an issue that should cut across party lines.

Honestly, I’m not sure which story is more exciting.

Valle Vidal - “Valley of Abundant Life” in English - is a 101,000-acre parcel of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains famous among outdoors folk in New Mexico for pristine beauty, high adventure, and copious wildlife. It shelters the state’s largest elk herd, mountain lions, black bears and some of the remaining populations of native Rio Grande cutthroat trout. The Bush Administration wanted to open 40,000 acres to coal-bed methane operations.

The entire environmental community objected, but sportsmen’s groups – such as Trout Unlimited, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership led the fight.

And – here’s the exciting part – Republicans and Democrats in New Mexico’s congressional delegation joined hands to write and steer to passage the Ville Vidal Protection Act.

Among other things this shows that politicians can quickly match the public’s mood for environmental protection when local voters tell them to do so – and protecting the Valle Vidal had overwhelming local support. And it certainly helps the effort when hunters and anglers get involved.

So you green sportsmen out there, never give up – especially on local issues.

To read more about the Valle Vidal, go to www.vallevidal.org

Congress may have changed with the recent national elections, but President Bush’s policy of drill-first-ask-questions-about–fish-and-wildlife-impacts-later appears to remain in place on our national lands. That’s why the Bureau of Land Management decided to issue another set of exceptions to a ban on winter drilling in prized wildlife habitat on the plains around Pinedale, this time ignoring objections from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The winter drilling ban was included in the permit the BLM used to open the region to oil and gas exploration because studies showed that winter drilling activity could harm mule deer, pronghorns, and sage grouse. But companies applying for exceptions have been getting waviers on the ban.
  
That should have changed this year. Why? Wyoming’s wildlife agency opposed these exceptions after its research showed that winter browse in the region was already stunted due to severe drought, and couldn’t afford any more stresses. But last week the BLM said that it knows better and granted the exceptions anyway.

That action has drawn sharp rebukes from sportsmen’s conservation groups, including the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which lists most national hunting and fishing-based conservation groups among its membership.

As the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership points out, “The BLM has said that it subscribes to the doctrine of adaptive management, meaning that it will change the way it handles energy development if those practices are found to harm wildlife populations. Here’s a chance for the agency to prove its commitment to this management practice, and to the conservation of wildlife.”

Good luck. The Bush Administratrion set this drama in motion almost two years ago when it instructed the BLM to change a long-held policy: Instead of making sure energy activities on public lands are safe for fish and wildlife, it must now make sure fish and wildlife programs do not interfere with energy development.

Congress can impact that policy in one of two ways: writing laws, or limiting budgets.

Stay tuned.

The mismanagement of ocean fisheries remains the environmental emergency that refuses to resonate with sportsmen. That fact was reinforced last week when a new study published in the prestigious journal Science warned that there would be a “global collapse” off all currently fished species within 50 years if nations do not act quickly to curb current overfishing.

That news gained headlines for a day, then quickly disappeared – except for the predictable ridicule by so-called conservative and libertarian op-ed columnists.

Twelve scientists from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Panama worked on the study, which was a review of current research and fishery landings data.  While the researchers point out their conclusions are the results of correlations drawn from the studies and, as such, are open to debate, there is no denying the pattern uncovered: By 2000, 38.2% of fish species worldwide had collapsed, and 7.1% had become extinct. If those trends continue, the authors warned “100% of [fished] species will collapse by the year 2048, or around that.”

So what were the next big headlines on fisheries?

First came the news that the European Union, Russia, and South Korea sank a bottom trawling protection plan at a meeting in Australia to establish the South Pacific regional fisheries management organization. That was followed by a report that Canada, Spain, Iceland, and Japan oppose a proposed ban on bottom trawling that is supported by the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Norway, and Brazil.

Ocean fisheries probably don’t get the attention of rainbow trout or elk because they exist in that world well beyond our horizons. But their future health will impact us far beyond the price we pay for snapper at the corner market. Scientists are beginning to understand that removing entire populations of fish from the ocean ecosystem would be like removing entire forests from a continent.

Now that’s a headline that would resonate.

Sportsmen and others green folks are about to find out if Democrats are truly pro-fish, pro-wildlife and pro-wild places--or just another group of hypocrites.

For 12 years, Republican congresses and the Bush Administration have been blamed for an unprecedented decline in environmental protections. And anyone reading their record of legislation passed, regulations changed, and budgets slashed will understand they earned that reputation.

But complaining is a lot safer than leading in Congress.  So we’re about to find out if the Dems who were defenders of the environment, when they had no chance of success, will be just as brave when industry lobbyists come calling to remind them who funds their campaigns.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the next Speaker of the House, has been touting an ambitious agenda for the “first 100 hours” of the next congress that has no real mention of our issues. I’ll be a little more realistic.

Here’s a suggested agenda for the “first 100 days” of the next Congress really green Democrats will support:

1. Re-write the Energy Bill.  Arguably the most anti-conservation legislation ever passed by congress, this measure eviscerated protections for land and water, fish and wildlife. A major overhaul would remove the exemptions to the Clean Water and Clean Air acts;  make sure fish and wildlife impacts are determined before leasing decisions are made; dedicate a portion of royalty payments or require energy companies to support a fund that will mitigate long-term fish and wildlife impacts in new leasing areas; take the billions in tax breaks handed to profit-bloated oil and gas companies and use it to subsidize development of alternative energy sources; raise the mandatory mileage standards for all vehicles and increase tax breaks for alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles.

2. Expand and secure conservation programs in the Farm Bill, and make sure increased subsidies for bio-fuels do not cause cuts in these programs that have been the backbone of fish and wildlife conservation on private lands.

3. Pass the Clean Water Act Reauthorization Bill.  When the Supreme Court last year ruled congress never intended the Clean Water Act to protect temporary and isolated wetlands, millions of acres of the most vital habitat for fish and wildlife were placed in danger. The Democratic congress can solve that problem by passing this bill, which specifically grants such protection--but the Republican leadership has refused to move.

4. Pass the Roadless Rule Conservation Act... This bill would codify the 2001 Roadless Rule, ending the Republican threat to what was the most widely-reviewed and popular initiative in the history of the Forest Service. It is also a rule hunters and anglers overwhelming support.

5. Fully fund fish and wildlife budgets at resources agencies that have been cut or eroded by inflation at almost every federal agency.

6. Fully fund the National Wildlife Refuge System. After celebrating the systems’ centennial in 2004, the administration began cutting its budget. Now there’s a $3 billion maintenance and operations backlog, hunting and fishing programs are being eliminated and refuges are being closed.

After those first 100 days, the Dems can go through the rules and regulations books and begin removing some of the more egregious changes made to accommodate oil, gas, mining, and timber.

At least that’s what the Democrats have been yelling for 12 years. Now they can prove it.

Those accusing the Bush Administration of handing the National Wildlife Refuge System starvation budgets the last few years had been called alarmists. Not any more. The system is now in intensive care due to lack of nourishment.

Last week, regional offices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
began announcing across-the-board cutbacks that will result in laying off personnel, closing programs--even putting refuges into mothballs--across the system that includes 96 million acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat on 545 refuges.  The impact on sportsmen will be large. Hunting is a key part of the management program on 317 refuges (www.fws.gov/hunting/wherego.html), while fishing is allowed on 270 (www.fws.gov/refuges/FishingGuide/index.html).

A snapshot of what lies ahead comes from coastal Louisiana, where hunters awaiting the opening of waterfowl seasons this weekend got slapped with this announcement by the Southeastern Louisiana Refuges Complex: “Some public use programs such as hunting and fishing may have to be scaled back or close on some refuges in the complex due to a shortage of funding and manpower.”

The bad news is hardly unexpected. Almost immediately after staging elaborate ceremonies to celebrate the system’s centennial in 2004, the administration began slicing its funding. As the National Wildlife Refuge Association reported (http://www.refugenet.org/new-publications/survivalkit.html), since 2004, shrinking budgets have created an operations and maintenance backlog of $3 billion. Meager budget allocations from the White House have barely covered the rising cost of salaries and fuel for trucks, much less for protecting the resources and running hunting and fishing programs.

Congress hasn’t been much help. While the House increased the administration’s request of $381.7 million to $388.7 million, that’s still far short of covering fixed cost increases and doesn’t address the backlog.  

Last week the news got worse when the USFWS announced the cutbacks would force the closure of Pelican Island NWR in Florida. This was the “bird island” that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to start the system more than 100 years ago.

The issue is such a no-brainer for people who love and depend on wildlife that it inspired a new group, the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), with members as diverse as Defenders of Wildlife and the National Rifle Association lobbying congress and the administration for adequate funding.

So far they have found few brains in Washington.

Now that we’ve elected (or re-elected) our congressmen, it’s time we kept track of them. If you want to follow your congressional delegations’ votes on fish and wildlife issues, it's easily done at http://www.govtrack.us/.

Now, some sportsmen may wonder why a conservation blog involves so many mentions of politics. The answer: It’s unavoidable.

We may not like it, but it’s a fact of life that politics has a big impact on fishing and hunting. That’s because politicians--congress and presidents--determine national policies on the public land and water we need for hunting and fishing, as well as environmental regulations which affect the quantity and quality of fish and game those lands can produce.

So it’s critical for sportsmen to understand this basic rule for effective conservation advocacy: You must forget your political party affiliation when addressing these issues.

Fish and wildlife are not Republican or Democrats. There are no red or blue deer, ducks, bass, or trout.  Don’t let anyone try to claim support for fish-, wildlife- and environmental-friendly legislation is the province of one party of the other.

If you’re a sportsman who cares about the future, you should demand your party support the right policies.
            
And let them know you’ll be following their votes.
 

When candidates in the mid-term congressional elections brag about much they love hunting and fishing, the first question a sportsman should ask is “Where do you hunt and fish?”

Politicians love to publish pictures of themselves draped in camo, shouldering a gun and even holding a bag of ducks or pheasant, or smiling with a gleaming trout in their hands. Makes them seem like one of us.

But all too often the location of their exploits is on some private club or a stretch of private water. Just because a president, senator, governor, or congressman likes to hunt and fish doesn’t mean he’s a friend to the rest of us who rely on public lands and waters for our recreation. Don’t look at what they like to do, look at their record on the public habitat that is the foundation of our traditions.

President Bush and many members of our current congress have played the sportsman’s card repeatedly during election cycles, only to lead an unprecedented assault on regulations that have protected fish and wildlife habitat for decades. In all likelihood the destruction those changes are having on public lands will never affect the quality of their outdoors experiences--because they seldom set foot on public lands.

It’s not enough that a politician likes to hunt and fish. They also have to like protecting the habitat that makes our future possible.