Protecting America’s Outdoor Legacy
By Whit Fosburgh, President & CEO, The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Having grown up in upstate New York, hunting and fishing have been omnipresent in my life for as long as I can remember. My family lived 2 miles back on a dirt road, with no neighbors except for the animals in the unbroken forest, complete with a native brook trout stream. When other kids went to the mall or watched TV, my brother and I were outside — often with a fly rod or shotgun in our hands.
Even as our lives progressed — college, jobs in the city, marriage, kids — those early years continued to guide us. My brother and I both got jobs in conservation: I started working in the federal policy arena, and Jamie helped implement conservation projects on the ground for the National Park Service. These days, our one-week deer-hunting camp in the Adirondacks lets us get together and honor the traditions that have been carried on for more than a century. And summer fishing expeditions are a time when our extended family all come together. We’ve both traveled to places across the country where there is certainly better hunting and fishing, but we always return to the Adirondacks, America’s first great wilderness preserve.
It is no accident that hunters and anglers have always been the driving force behind conservation in America, or that Theodore Roosevelt is generally remembered as the father of conservation in our country. He credited wild places and wildlife for his development as a man, and he feared that the rugged individualism the wilderness taught him would be lost if he didn’t succeed in making conservation the nation’s highest priority.
Those who do not hunt or fish will probably never understand the draw. Unless you’ve done it, it’s impossible to know the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes with catching a rising trout on a dry fly, or serving your own venison on Christmas Eve. You become part of the woods or the river, able to sense subtle changes all around and feel incredible empathy for the game you pursue — and that’s not always easy to explain. But as an outdoorsman, I was raised to appreciate the natural world that functions in an amazing, often brutal harmony, in spite of man’s alterations.
It is no accident that hunters and anglers have always been the driving force behind conservation in America, or that Theodore Roosevelt is generally remembered as the father of conservation in our country. He credited wild places and wildlife for his development as a man, and he feared that the rugged individualism the wilderness taught him would be lost if he didn’t succeed in making conservation the nation’s highest priority. During his tenure as president, Roosevelt protected more than 240 million acres for national parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife refuges. He and his colleagues ended market hunting and ushered in a system of principles now known as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Subsequent generations have expanded Roosevelt’s legacy by creating funding mechanisms, primarily through excise taxes and license fees, to pay for the professional management and acquisition of millions of acres for the public to enjoy.
Today we all have a duty to understand this uniquely American privilege and to preserve it for future generations. Lamar Alexander, the senior senator from Tennessee, is fond of saying, “Egypt has its pyramids, Italy has its arts, and America has its national parks.” Too often we take for granted what Roosevelt and generations of conservation-minded leaders have left us: a public-lands network that is unparalleled in all the world. The best-managed fish and wildlife populations of any nation. And the ability for all Americans to hunt and fish, regardless of class or economic status. It is a system that benefits everyone, from the sportsman to the hiker to those who simply want to drink clean water or experience wide open spaces.
But Roosevelt’s legacy is under attack. For more than three decades, budgets for agencies that manage our public lands have been squeezed and shrunk. In the 1970s, conservation spending made up more than 2% of the federal budget; today it is only about 1%. Recreation facilities across the country are being closed or lie in disrepair. The U.S. Forest Service now spends more than half its annual budget fighting wildfires, up from less than 20% two decades ago. The financial crisis this creates for the agency hamstrings it from meeting the expectations of the public.
Now, there is a chorus of voices calling for our federal public lands to be turned over to the states. In fact, a resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate this spring stated that it should be the policy of the U.S. to “sell, or transfer to, or exchange with, a state or local government any Federal land that is not within the boundaries of a National Park, National Preserve, or National Monument….” It passed 51 to 49. In the House of Representatives, a special committee is currently looking into public-land divestment strategies.
Our public lands are fundamental to maintaining the $646 billion annual contribution that outdoor recreation makes to our economy, especially when you consider that 72% of Westerners depend on America’s 640 million acres of federal public lands for hunting. But you may be asking yourself why you should care if these acres are held by the states or the feds. First, hunting, camping, biking, off-road-vehicle riding, and many other outdoor activities are often not allowed on state lands. Second, Western states had far more public lands at statehood than they do today; most of those lands have been sold off, and nothing would prevent that from happening if those states received more federal lands. Finally, most Western states are constitutionally mandated to maximize profits from lands in the state trust. Federal public lands are managed for multiple uses, including outdoor recreation, and belong to every American.
None of us can afford to sit back and assume that what we have been given will be here forever. Thankfully, sportsmen and other outdoor recreation enthusiasts across the country are starting to fight back.
Those of us who spend a lot of time in the Northeast cherish our public lands, in part because we have so few of them. Perhaps because of the connection that I feel to the land where I hunt and fish, I have made it my vocation, as well as my avocation, to make sure that we honor the work of our forefathers and pass on America’s unique outdoor legacy to future generations. Conservation groups and companies that depend upon the outdoor market are doing the same.
But, in a world with so many challenges and pressures on our public lands, our outdoor legacy won’t be secure until all users unite.
