Posted by:
brhaco
at Sat Sep 18 11:48:57 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by brhaco ]
to this entire subject-I found it on the Trout Unlimited website, and it nicely sums up the situation.
Unfortunately, politics never really disappear from the conservation conversation. A decade ago, many in the Republican camp assumed that, because sportsmen often champion the traditionally conservative mission to back the Second Amendment, hunters and anglers were fully invested in other right-leaning policies regarding resource extraction, industrial development and privatization. Democrats, on the other hand, assumed sportsmen and women resided in the political back pocket of the conservative agenda, and therefore listened more closely to those in the environmental movement, thereby marginalizing the hunters and anglers who were interested in a more moderate approach to landscape-level protection.
It wasn't until 2005 that TU's Sportsmen's Conservation Project really began to help anglers and hunters flex their political muscles. Efforts were afoot to sell off public lands to mining interests, and energy development policies were put in place to make drilling for oil and gas an expedient process that bypassed bedrock environmental laws put in place to protect the public's land and water … and fish and game.
It was then that we, as hunters and anglers, convinced politicians that protecting habitat also protected our opportunity to hunt and fish – now and for generations to come. Politicians began to understand that sportsmen and women were approaching conservation not from a political perspective, but from a deeply-held cultural point of view. With guidance from the SCP, sportsmen stopped the proposed liquidation of federal public lands, and played prominent roles in the campaigns to protect Montana's Rocky Mountain Front and New Mexico's Valle Vidal from unnecessary and intrusive oil and gas drilling.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG
Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase and Striped Desert California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles
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I think this is very germaine - brhaco, Sat Sep 18 11:48:57 2010