NEW PROGRAM NEEDS MORE PRIORITY
“Open Fields” Hunting Access Program Needs a Push
With the next re-authorization of the Farm Bill looming in 2012, it's critical to get this program rolling to not only keep it alive as sausage making begins again but to encourage increased funding in the next cycle.By Bill Schneider, 11-05-09
The new Open Fields Program helps preserve hunting access. Photos by Dusan Smetana.
Open Fields was a “major victory” for hunters and wildlife conservation, according to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) and many other green groups that lobbied for it. It passed back in December 2008, but almost a year later, this innovative hunter access program is still mired in the administrative rule making process.
Now, predictably, conservationists who struggled mightily for the program are asking Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for a little more priority.
Inserted into the 2008 Farm Bill for the first time, but only after a two-year battle fought not only by TRCP, but Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and a long list of conservation groups, wildlife agencies and labor unions, Open Fields includes $50 million in financial support for voluntary, state-run access programs that provide incentives to private landowners to allow public access to their land.
Another key, but mostly unknown, section of the Open Fields Program requires private landowners who enroll their property to use “the best management practices for fish and wildlife.”
Instead of trying to create a national, one-size-fits-all-states program, Open Fields helps finance existing, but woefully under-funded, state access programs, such as Montana’s Block Management Program, Oregon’s Access and Habitat Program, or South Dakota’s Public Walk-In Program. About 20 states already have such voluntary, incentive programs, and many others are trying to launch them.
Getting such a program through Congress was well worth celebrating, of course, but regrettably, the game isn’t over. Now, conservationists need to get it funded and implemented.
At the recent TRCP Media Summit in Craig, Montana, I chatted with Dave Nomsen, vice president for governmental affairs for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, about Open Fields and he bemoaned the slow rule-making process.
“It’s vital to get some success out on the ground,” Nomsen said, “before the next Farm Bill comes around.”
Congress re-authorizes the Farm Bill, an always massive and always controversial piece of legislation, every five years, so in 2012 or 2013, Congress will also have to re-authorize the Open Fields Program.
“The Farm Bill is easily the most significant piece of legislation affecting fish and wildlife,” TRCP President George Cooper said at the Summit.
He also said it’s “so critical” to get the program going because he’s sure the states will quickly enroll the entire $50 million to illustrate how desperate the hunting access crisis has become.
“Declining access for sportsmen is a major cause of decline in the numbers of American hunters and anglers,” Cooper said. “This harms rural economies that depend on seasonal influxes of sportsmen, and it harms the entire country when our citizens’ connections to their lands and waters disintegrate.”
Both Cooper and Nomsen see a popular, fully enrolled, if not over-enrolled, program as a powerful lobbying position for the next Farm Bill--not only to keep the program alive in a time of deficit reduction, but to increase funding next time around.
But, they fear, if Open Fields gets bogged down in administrative quagmires and doesn’t have a chance to shine, it might be an easy budget cut next time around.
T
om Franklin, senior vice president at TRCP, echoes this concern. “This is a signature program for TRCP,” he told NewWest.Net, “and we have been disappointed that it hasn’t moved forward more rapidly.”
Franklin said Vilsack met with TRCP’s Board of Directors in April and said Open Fields implementation was on track for “this fall” and that President Obama’s 2010 budget includes full funding for the program--all $50 million ($16.67 million over the next three years).
“Well, it’s still ‘this fall,’” Franklin admitted, but I could tell he was worried.
Whenever a new program is created, he explained, the managing agency tends to concentrate on getting money out the door for existing programs before doing new programs.
“They (USDA staffers) can get projects like this going immediately if there is a high enough priority,” Franklin claimed, “but this is a new program and not a huge program, so it isn’t high priority.”
It might not be high priority for overworked USDA staffers, but it’s an extremely high priority for conservationists who understand that dwindling public access to private lands threatens the very foundation of the sport of hunting.
“There is no reason it should be taking this long,” Franklin insisted. “The states are ready to go; the hunters are ready to go; so let’s get it done.”
The last word Franklin had from USDA is that the “interim final rule” (how’s that for some real bureaucratese?) “might be out by the end of the year,” and if that happens, it will be in time, barely, to get some land enrolled in the new system during 2010.
But if it slips into next year, even into January, Franklin said states might not have enough time to apply and receive grants and “get this off the ground.”
They say it’s never a matter of time or money, only a matter of priority--an old adage that nicely applies to the Open Fields Program. So, Secretary Vilsack, please pull the strings necessary to give this all-important program the priority it deserves and underway before the end of the year.
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The above mentioned outfits, in my opinion, have done more harm than good for the average hunter. That is, the rank and file Joe Blow who wants to get out with the kid or his Dad a couple times a season. Next week I may have an opportunity to show some folks in the above mentioned outfits something I find really depressing...PF feeders next to no hunting signs. Gut feeling? They will be more interested in getting "special access".
If you want my tax dollars, don't sell my wildlife while subsidizing farmers. No CRP payments without access. Period. End of story.
And please, no more funny hats and $5000 dog kennels mounted on $50,000 trucks. We don't live here to service rich bird hunters that can buy access we can't. Trout fishermen with shotguns...spare us!
2. Government is brought in to provide public paid (by all of the public, not just hunters & anglers) incentives to private landowners to open their lands.
3. However, landowner must implement someone's definition of "best practices" to enhance hunting & fishing on their private property.
4. Inevitably, an agency will require monitoring, reporting, inspecting, accountability of those "best practices".
5. Private property owners not meeting ever changing criteria will fined, sued for not maintaining - perhaps even criminal prosecution.
6. Land will be sold at auction on the courthouse steps, if not first claimed for tax/fine liens by government.
7. Be careful what you wish for.
CRP could easily be extended to longer periods for those who restore habitat by planting native vegetation for security cover. Where appropriate, trees could easily be grown on extended contracts for multipli-species benefits. Without effective habitat, what's the point of subsidizing access?
I believe the only way access will increase is if we demand strict adherence to the "public wildlife doctrin". It is our only hope for the future. The private sector will always out spend the public for access to high interest wildlife, a doe comes cheap, big buck does not. Glossy mags put out by hook and bullet conservation outfits make matters worse. Farmers like it just the way it is.
Good article regarding hunters access.
In the upcoming Montana Congressional race, I thought you would be interested in knowing that candidate Dennis McDonald, does not allow public hunting on his large ranch north/east of Big Timber.
Given that McDonald has received more than 3/4's of a million dollars ($776,753.00 to be exact) in the last 10 years from the federal government for USDA farm subsidy programs, I think that he would and should be more willing to allow public hunting and access to public lands within his property, to taxpaying sportsmen.
Source: http://farm.ewg.org/farm/persondetail.php?custnumber=008784502
You should make your friends in other public access groups aware of this matter with McDonald (who made big money as a California trial lawyer before buying a ranch in Montana) and you should all ask him to give the money back.
Heck... you could use that money for the Open Fields access campaign.
By the way, during that same time period, Denny Rehberg received $7,971 in USDA subsidies.
Thanks for the info on McDonald, I never liked that guy and I'm a dem. He won't stand a chance against the man who stares, with love, at goats.
I'm not saying that I couldn't afford to do it, it is just against what I stand for....a lot of those paying customers are going to go home with something, after all they stroked the check they are going to shoot something. Where a guy and his kid may not shoot something..just enjoy seeing a lot.
It is certainly getting a lot tougher to get kids interested into the sport for that very reason. I don't know too many youngsters that have the patients to walk days without seeing anything.
Montana does a has done a poor job in cultivating the relationship with the private landowners, the block management program is a great step in the right direction. But I believe that each block management area be "appraised" for its hunting value....as someone said earlier, guys keep the good stuff for the outfitters and the desert wasteland for the public.
Bottom line is that the private ground is going to the outfitters & out-of-staters. Fine...what they should do is keep all of the outfitters & out-of-staters off of the public ground.
My biggest problem is with access, hunting gets extremely discouraging when a person can't even access the public ground that they are allowed to hunt. To me the biggest downfall of what the government has done is not procure easements to the land that is all of ours. I can't count the number of times that I have wanted to go somewhere only to be blocked by a piece of private property.
You are right, I don't deserve access, and farmers don't deserve my tax dollars in the form of CRP payments to provide habitat to grow game (the publics) to sell. If you are a farmer with huntable quarry on your place I would be glad to come out and work a day. Why not? I already employ a dozen or so kids and adults from farms in the area to say nothing of bringing in excess of well over a million dollars into the state and my community each year. I guess hunting access is to much to ask. Here's the one I like the best, "farmers support the town", its the other way around.
The problem is a grave one that is not headed in the right direction any time soon.