TRCP, GUARANTEEING YOU A PLACE TO HUNT AND FISH
New Group Carries on the Legacy of Theodore Roosevelt
By Bill Schneider, 10-18-07
I don’t know if you believe in the power of visualization, but if you do, you should visualize former republican president and legendary conservationist Theodore Roosevelt in his grave out near Sagamore Hill, his New York home, with a huge smile on his face.
The reason is the roaring success of his newest namesake group called the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP).
I’ve recently returned from the TRCP Media Summit in Craig, Montana, and several engaging conversations with new group’s leadership. As I drove away, I had to say to myself, “it’s about time this happened.”
“We started up only five years ago,” says President and CEO George Cooper, with a big smile. “We’ve been told that it takes this long just to get established, but we are already having a big impact.”
So, you may be asking, what is TRCP? If you don’t know, I wouldn’t be embarrassed because of the newness and under-the-radar-line approach. Basically, TRCP is trying to unify the much-divided hunting and fishing constituency and make it the political force it should be.
“We don’t have a grassroots connection with the hunter and angler,” Cooper explains. What he really meant to say, I suspect, is “until we came along.”
Cooper is talking about the current conservation group landscape with a lot of different groups, most with a narrow or species-specific focus, working hard to represent their small slice of the entire sporting population, which even in the face of recent declines is still 40 million Americans. Meaning no disrespect for any groups, most of which do a terrific job for their members, but no conservation group has made any progress in connecting all these organizations into a united political front. And that’s precisely what TRCP is doing.
Jim Range, chair of the TRCP board of directors and a driving force behind getting the group off the ground, explained that no group was really getting ahead of the game on major federal legislation affecting fishing and hunting and having an impact on the bill, let alone serving as a national voice for the sporting public. “In the past, when we started working on legislation, it was already too late,” Range admits. “The deals were already made.”
So, in the first years of TRCP’s existence, Range looked at the congressional agenda and singled out the upcoming legislation that would likely have the biggest impact on fish and wildlife habitat, and to the surprise of many hunters and anglers, he came up with the highway bill, a massive piece of federal legislation not even on any conservation group’s radar screen.
“We started working on the highway bill,” Range notes, “and when it finally passed, it included $2 billion for fish and wildlife.”
(No, that wasn’t one of my typos; it was really $2 billion, not $2 million, with more billions to come as TRCP started working on other bills.)
After this initial success back in 2004 with the highway bill, TRCP hit its stride. Now, Range says the big priority is the upcoming farm bill. “We got into this one early.”
The farm bill, you may be asking, but think again. “This is the biggest bill ever to come out of Congress that affects fish and wildlife,” Range claims, “and we are going to get everything we had in the past farm bill and more.”
Geoff Mullins, TRCP staffer working on the Farm Bill, told me later that the House-passed version of the legislation already includes $21.5 billion for wildlife and hunting access programs, mostly for the Crop Reserve Program (CRP), which he calls “The Holy Grail of wildlife conservation.” And Mullins said, “we hope to increase that amount in the Senate.”
Again, we’re talking billions, not millions. You don’t hear those numbers often when talking about wildlife conservation. Not until TRCP started rolling, of course, and that’s considered a “big impact” in anybody’s book.
The key word in TRCP’s success is “partnership.” This collaborative approach was a ripe idea. All conservation groups struggle to affect the course of major federal legislation, so TRCP came around to become what you could call a “trade association” for hunting and fishing groups. Right now, TRCP has 27 nonprofit partners (Pheasants Forever, Trout Unlimited, Trust for Public Land, Wildlife Society, et al) and 18 corporate supporters (Orvis, Remington, Patagonia, Plum Creek, Versus, et al), all working together to, as Cooper describes, “represent the interests of all 40 million hunters and anglers.”
And I strongly suspect this diverse list of companies and nonprofits will grow rapidly in the next few years.
Our senators and representatives have never seen this type of bottom-up, aggressive coalition form for fish and wildlife interests, and based on current successes, they’re obviously listening. In politics, numbers make a big difference. (How’s that for an understatement?) And TRCP has the right numbers.
Right now, according to Cooper, TRCP can say it represents the interests of about nine million anglers and hunters, roughly the combined memberships of all partner organizations. On top of that, TRCP recently formed relationships with 23 trade unions because their research found that 70 percent of union members hunt or fish. Now, TRCP have 23 charter members of what’s called the Union Sportsman Alliance.
So, listen up senators and representatives, to that nine million, you can add 70 percent of the membership of these unions, and you have TRCP representing the best interests of another 16 million hunters and angers, most of which do not now belong to any of conservation organization. All of a sudden one group, for the first time ever, is speaking for all of us hunters and anglers, or at least 25 million of us. And again, listen up politicos, a high percentage of hunters and anglers vote. Without doubt, these numbers can swing any election at any level.
In my view, the founders made at least three strategic decisions years ago that allowed TRCP to quickly go where no conservation group has ever gone.
First, the group only focuses on a few mega-issues that have the greatest impact on fish and wildlife habitat and sporting access instead of getting spread too thin by chasing every issue that comes along. Right now, TRCP is concentrating on only four issues--fossil fuel development, the farm bill, mining law reform and the roadless rule--with minor activity on a few other issues.
Second, TRCP doesn’t take radical positions on issues, which leaves behind the hyperactive left and right but scores points with the broad middle of the political spectrum, which, regrettably, is not as outspoken as the extreme fringes. As witness to this strategy, Cooper points out that “we aren’t trying to stop oil and gas development; we just want it done right.”
One night after dinner, Range launched a discussion on politics--because, of course, you never talk about politics before dinner. In listening to this discussion, it was gin-clear that TRCP’s plan would work. Even though all or most partners hunt and own guns, for example, several people in the group discussion described the group’s efforts as “beyond guns” or “more than guns,” in a thinly veiled reference to the gun lobby which has been so effective in protecting the Second Amendment, but not on wildlife habitat and access issues, if not in conflict with them.
This moderate approach is obviously working on the farm bill. Here, TRCP worked closely with its partners and came up with detailed recommendations endorsed by all partners and then presented to Congress as the “national plan” from the fishing and hunting public. And the results are already in--85 percent of what TRCP and its partners asked for actually showed up in the final House-passed version of the farm bill. (The Senate votes on it sometime in the next six weeks.)
Third, TRCP founders looked out there and saw one reason no group has been able to successfully represent all groups. Most conservation groups compete with each other for members and foundation money. Instead of competing with other conservation groups, TRCP supports and compliments them, effectively increasing the reach and impact of all the groups. TRCP doesn’t even have paid membership, but you can click here and become an individual “partner.” I hope you do and add yourself to the more than 100,000 anglers and hunters who already have signed up.
Cooper is politically reserved when he talks about all this success--"The ship is turning a little bit, but it isn’t going to turn a lot until we get a new administration.”
That sounds conservative to me. I bet it turns a bit more before the election, as long as partners--nonprofit, corporate or individual--keep signing up to be part of the long-awaited solution
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Review Now, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Department’s 2007 National survey of hunting, fishing and wildlife watchers:
http://federalasst.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html
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Wildlife Watchers of Wyoming
The concept of how Wyomingites can secure better representation of their views of how the state should manage their wildlife was created by Mack P. Bray of Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Tom Mazzarisi of Madison, Wyoming. Feel free to distribute and forward this information to those you believe may be interested in executing the concept.
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PREMISE
Thanks to the Wyoming Constitution, all the wildlife of this state belong to all the people of this state, whether they be hunters, anglers, ski bums, hikers, the elderly, wildlife watchers, etc.
However, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department openly admits it almost exclusively represents the interests of hunters and anglers because most of the department’s budget is derived from hunting permits and fishing licenses (a small percentage is received from the federal government). This fiscal relationship leads to bias against non-game wildlife, especially predators such as grizzlies and wolves.
Now, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Department’s 2007 National survey of hunting, fishing and wildlife watchers has revealed that, in Wyoming (and many other states), there are more wildlife watchers than hunters and anglers combined. The survey can be found here: http://federalasst.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html
It can be seen that non-consumptive wildlife watchers are not being fairly represented in Wyoming, primarily because they are not helping fund the Game and Fish Department, in addition to other political factors, such as the influence of ranchers and agriculture over the state and its departments.
EXECUTION
Therefore, this proposal is offered:
A non-profit entity, Wildlife Watchers of Wyoming, is to be formed with the explicit mission of representing, at the state level, all the wildlife watchers of Wyoming, whether they are bird watchers, grizzly watchers, etc.
Membership should be always be FREE, to encourage large numbers of the public to join. To obtain membership, one would simply send a story, photograph or poem about wildlife.
FUNDING
Funding would be derived from a combination of grants and private sources.
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Once sufficient members are obtained, representatives of Wildlife Watchers of Wyoming would lobby the Wyoming legislature, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and Game and Fish Department to obtain better representation of their interests.
Members would be encouraged to communicate their views to their respective state and federal legislators.
Game and Fish would be lobbied to create a Wildlife Watchers Stamp; similar to the conservation stamp the Department requires all hunters and anglers to buy for $10. The Wildlife Watchers Stamp could cost $10 and the proceeds would be dedicated to the management of species such as sage grouse, grizzlies and wolves.
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To successfully complete this project would be a major undertaking, but the results would be revolutionary.
Additionally, Wildlife Watchers of Wyoming could be a model for wildlife watchers in other states to adopt.
On behalf of all the wildlife of this great state, please feel free to distribute and forward this information.
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Happy wildlife watching, forever, to you and yours,
Mack P. Bray
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Tom Mazzarisi
Madison, Yellowstone National Park
In just a few minutes, I was able to root up a couple grants that show who really calls the shots at TRCP:
Here’s a Pew grant:
Legal Name: Trout Unlimited National Office
Project Name: Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Location: Arlington, VA
Amount: $750,000
Award Date: Dec 13, 2006
Purpose: To more fully and effectively engage Americas 40 million hunters and anglers in an effort to protect critical wildlife and fish habitat.
In short, spin. This grant is on the heels of a million dollar pass-through using Trout Unlimited as the conduit.
And here’s a couple of grants from the McKnight Foundation, Minnesota-based. Again, political. Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Washington, DC $80,000 Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Washington, DC $200,000 To support the Growing Conservation Campaign and the Wetlands Bill of Rights Campaign
program area: Environment
Real purpose, for a political campaign serving the eco-political agenda, sort of like this one to Taxpayers for Common Sense: Washington, DC $230,000, “To assess and publicize wasteful federal water projects and farm policies”
The Beldon Fund of Minnesota threw TRCP “a general support grant for [$100,000…] to amplify the voice of hunters and anglers as advocates for sound environmental policy, while also giving the Sierra Club Foundation $400,000 for its Building Environmental Community Campaign.
The nutshell history is that Pew’s initial hype campaign for the Clinton Roadless Initiative flopped in large part because sportsmens groups either took no position or opposed it. In their analysis, Pew staff realized that most hook-and-bullet groups are either single-species or regional in nature – which parallels individual sportspeople’s proclivities. The only existing umbrella group is the National Rifle Association, but NRA’s primary focus is on gun rights. Hunting comes second.
In short, a power vacuum. To fill such a vacuum, one needs money and membership. So Pew, and Ted Turner, provided the money and membership is free. Free membership doesn’t require a lot of deep thought as to whether the organization is worth the dues.
Perfect. Gotta hand it to Pew's people, they are worth what they get paid.
Too late! ARRRggggghhh, they've sucked out my brain and replaced it with cells from Cleveland Amory and Roxanne Quimby...
MUST SAVE TREES....MUST SAVE TREEEEEESSS
Seen that movie "Bug" with Ashley Judd?
I could not resist.
But, man, I mean, Taxpayers for Common Sense? Hijacked by ecos? Because they opposed the Corps $360 million Grand Prairie Project taxpayer's gift to the Riceland Foods co-op in Arkansas? Or what? I know you do your research. But I am not able to believe that one.
Hal
Don't be a pig. If you want to argue (wrongly) that TRCP isn't just what I said it was, a specific-purpose political front built to fill a political gap in support of a strategy that uses "hunters and anglers" is service of another agenda completely, fine, do that.
If not, well, you've got the Gerber.
I honestly believe that there is only one agenda being served by the efforts of the TRCP. That agenda is to protect the lands and waters that provide habitat for wildlife and room for outdoorspeople to roam, hunt and fish.
Hal
Those of us a bit further down the food chain from high-dollar DC lobbyists like James D. Range, or TR IV, who humbly jump in the truck after work at the mill, to hike to our spot and hopefully bag one, lucky to have a Rem 870 versus a Purdey, or buy one of those ten-grand hunts Ted donated to the TRCP cause a few years back, are simply pawns to TRCP's funding base.
Hey, I like habitat and wish I had the disposables to horse into the Bob Marshall. But if TRCP gets its way, people in my socioeconomic bracket will be utterly and finally hosed. They'll have gobs of hunting land, but lack the means to get there. Same deal for fishing. Shortly after, they'll give up the game entirely...something ol' Cleveland Amory wished for, I'm sure.
And there is the matter of "protection." Seen what happened in the fire areas lately? How is that, dear sir, protection? How long is it going to be before the habitat attributes lost are functional again?
As for TCS, the only lard projects they ever attack are those that Greens dislike. Conservation easements are lard, too, but you'll never hear TCS screaming about that. They didn't howl about Tom Harkin's $50 million jungle gym, did they? Nah.
Hey, by the way, I've got my elk rifle. K-98, five dollar barrel screwed on with a pipe wrench. Took her out the other day and shot five into less than an inch with iron. Suppose I should glass her?
Another problem is the supposed income from wildlife watchers. When I wrote for some specifics first the people employed in tourism dropped from 39,000 to 28,000. I pointed out that the 39,000 was nearly 10% of the entire Wyoming population of men, women, and children. Well they count all of the restaurant and service station employees, plus assorted others.
Then of course there is the fact that hunting and fishing donations via licenses are mandatory, so if watchers are going to have the same input as the others, they should also be required to donate money via licenses. Otherwise those paying the costs should have the say.
Range is a long time lobbyist for WMI, the trash people. I know he owns a place by Craig, I don't know whether he's built on it, but I will bet my death-ray five-dollar barrel that he doesn't allow trespass for hunting or fishing on it.
The fact is, wealthy urban Republicans are fundamentally different from the Wassa Matta With Kansus rural Republicans...no pun intended.
Furthermore, import/expedition/city hunters are way different in their outlook than rural/local/in-state sportspeople. This is a natural philosophical division, aided and explicitly abetted by various and sundry. How you think depends a lot on where yer at, and where you're from, and what you read. If the LA Times, or the WaPo (thank God Blaine Harden is in Japan) or even New West, was your only "western" source of information, would you really have a clue? Pshaw.
I don't have to be a flaming right winger (which I'm not) to figure that out. Pew Trust certainly has, haven't they?
I'm a 70 year old lifelong westerner. I've hunted and fished most of my life. I've watched the bulldozers and chainsaws and ATVs ruin more land than I've seen preserved. My generation did it's damnedest to finish off the slaughter, clear-cut the last acre, and subdivide the remaining meadows. I hope to hell it gets saved, and if the so-called "Wise Use" folks take offense, they can go join Larry Craig at the nearest airport.
I think the key point is not where the source of the money but how it's used, and there's no doubt in my mind that TRCP is putting it to good use, the stated use, to protect fish and wildlife habitat and access. Taking a more conservative, right-of-center approach only improves the results in today's poltiical world. I'm surprised by your criticism of TRCP and hope you reconsider.
Bill
And I would like to say hello to Bill Schneider from way back in High Country News days.
Getting a comment from Tom Bell is, for me, almost like getting one from Teddy himself. Thanks for chiming in, Tom, and it's great to know you're still out there supporting the cause.
Bill
P.S. For those of you who don't know Tom, he is the founder of High Country News and made a lot of waves back in the seventies and eighties when we made a lot of giant steps forward in environmental law and policy.
Teddy Roosevelt's environmental policies were unique in his day but were to the right of todays Libertarian policies.
However, maybe this is the vehicle for something long over due in the country, not just the West. It is time for legislation that imparts legal status and economic value to habitats and all wildlife, and puts the value assessment of game, non-game and habitat in the hands of someone other than State Game and Fish Departments who are always strapped for money and are political footballs. In other words, when its time to evaluate a huge planned community/new city, the critters and the places they live have legal position and avocates besides the vulnerable/contribution-needing NGOs, Fish and Games and Fish and Wildlife. Take back the land before the West becomes decentralized and there are cities everywhere! They have us fighting the good ranchers/farmers who have kept the West open and habitat intact. Starve the rancher, farmer, so they sell out to golfandcabins. Sprawl and habitat fragmentation/destruction are the enemies of all of us, and we are seeing the tip of the iceberg.
As for the Jakester, the whole point of the saw was to get in the paper in a fight for political relevance and therefore money. But it's all lip service.
The difference between Pew and the "radicals" is in tactics only. The eventual aim isn't that much different between the two. It's a matter only of semantics.
First, the TRCP does receive funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, and that funding has been critical in helping us get more of America’s sportsmen involved in issues of greatest importance to the full spectrum of the sportsmen’s community. While substantial, Pew funding makes up less than a third of the TRCP’s total income, and Pew was one of more than a dozen foundations whose grants supported our work. Trout Unlimited does serve as our “fiscal agent” for Pew funding – an arrangement that is common in the non-profit community. It does not mean that TU operates or administers the TRCP, as Mr. Skinner suggests.
Second, Pew does not drive our agenda or use us as a front, as Mr. Skinner asserts. Our agenda is defined and driven by consensus reached with our partners. Take, for example, our initiative devoted to promoting responsible energy development on public lands. The TRCP has made every effort to make it clear that we are not against development, in fact, we support developing domestic energy supplies. But poorly planned, rushed development, or development that does not include an adequate assessment of fish and wildlife populations and their habitat needs, is something the TRCP opposes. Similar common-sense approaches underlie our work to promote voluntary private land sportsmen’s access programs, funding for state fish and wildlife agencies, conservation funding in the Farm Bill, etc.
As per Mr. Skinner’s claims about TRCP Chairman Jim Range, it is striking that he fails to mention that Range is one of the most highly effective and widely respected leaders of the community of American sportsmen. Because Mr. Skinner highlighted just one of Range’s many accomplishments, let me mention some others. Range either serves or has served on the Boards of Directors for The Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, the American Sportfishing Association, Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited and the Yellowstone Park Foundation. He also served as the Honorary President of the Izaak Walton League of America. From 1985 - 1991, he served as board chairman for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and in 1991 President Bush appointed him to the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. In the fall of 2003, then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton appointed Mr. Range to the Sportfishing and Boating Partnership Council. He also was recently appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Valles Caldera Trust.
Among the awards and recognition for a lifetime of achievement, in 2003 Range received the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Great Blue Heron Award, the highest honor given to an individual at the national level by the Department. He was also awarded the Outdoor Life Magazine 2003 Conservationist of the Year Award and the Norville Prosser Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the American Sportfishing Association. He has even been featured in Time magazine for his efforts to expand the availability and attractiveness of conservation tax incentives.
Finally, Mr. Skinner’s claim that, “But at the end of the day, sportspeople and their issues are not the first priority of the organization,” is absolute bunk. We at the TRCP toil under the motto that, “To be loyal to the American sportsman, we must first be loyal to the resource.” To contend that we do otherwise is to reveal a complete ignorance of what drives both our staff and our organization in our efforts to guarantee all Americans a place to hunt and fish.
Tim Zink
Director of Communications
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
I've had a bizzy day since I'm not sinecured with a cool PR job like you. How long did it take for the leadership to vet your response?
I'll respond when I can afford to, but for now, since Pew's only funding a third of you, how about naming the other dozen foundations? Let me guess a couple: Packard, Brainerd, Hewlett, Turner?
Yeah, it is time to stop the ruthless exploitation of our national heritage, the environment.
So long as the TRCP has as its goals to promote field sportsmanship for the many, protect the resources and the environment that hold the precious wildlife, advocate for more public involvement, and hand down the heritage to future generations they will have my support.