Make your mark on the future of fish and wildlife during National Make-a-Will Month
When I see a native brook trout rising on a dry fly or a bugling elk on a crisp September morning, it strikes me how few Americans have the opportunity or means to be this close to nature. Hunters and anglers get to experience the outdoors in a way that is fully immersive, which is why our community is so engaged in continuing to maintain habitat and enhance our access to these valuable places.
TRCP donors Paul and Carol Rose have also realized the importance of hunters and anglers to the future of conservation. And they have chosen to secure their legacy as committed conservationists by naming the TRCP in their will.
Planning how to best protect the people you love as well as the causes you care about requires much forethought, paperwork, and some legal advice, too. But it allows you to leave your assets to family members and nonprofit organizations after you pass away.
Despite the importance of having a will, many Americans never get around to drafting one. One common misconception is that unless you’re wealthy, you do not need a will. But everyone, regardless of their wealth, should have a will, because of the peace of mind and ease that it can bring upon your passing. Check out this graphic from our friends at FreeWill that outlines common myths and facts about creating a will:
“We could think of no better way to support the ideals of Theodore Roosevelt and the long-term mission of TRCP than through a planned gift,” Paul and Carol Rose write. “We cannot, on one hand, talk about the conservation of our natural resources and the preservation of our outdoor heritage while at the same time ignoring those things that each of us may do to help sustain organizations such as TRCP, who lead in this effort.”
Join Paul and Carol and leave your lasting mark on conservation during National Make-a-Will Month by including a gift to TRCP in your will. Cash, stock, or real estate can be donated to the TRCP—learn more about planned giving here.
Already have the TRCP in your will? Please contact Joshua Walters, our director of program development, to make sure we have recognized you as a member of the T.R. Legacy Society.
The information stated here is not intended as financial or legal advice. Always consider seeking the advice of your financial or legal advisor.
Five Things Hunters and Anglers Should Know About the Inflation Reduction Act
How would the most recent reconciliation agreement benefit hunters and anglers?
Editor’s note: Since we published this story, the Inflation Reduction Act passed Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022. Unfortunately, the final bill did not include the updates to federal oil and gas bonding rates outlined below. The Senate Parliamentarian ultimately ruled that the provision could not be included in budget reconciliation legislation. In addition to what is described here, the final bill also included an additional $4 billion to address drought by investing in water conservation and habitat restoration across the West, with a particular focus on the Colorado River Basin.
Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer shocked most of D.C. last week when they announced that they had struck a deal on a reconciliation bill—known as the Inflation Reduction Act—that includes $369 billion in energy and natural resource investments aimed at tackling climate change, in addition to other healthcare and tax related provisions.
The TRCP has been tracking budget reconciliation discussions over the past year and offered lawmakers a host of recommendations that would benefit fish, wildlife, and the hunt-fish community. Thousands of sportsmen and sportswomen also contacted their lawmakers in support of investing in conservation through the reconciliation process.
Here are specific elements of the agreement that will impact hunters and anglers and what we’ll continue to push for as Congress begins to debate the bill in the days ahead.
A Boost for Private Lands Conservation
The agreement makes a major investment in conservation programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, providing $20 billion over the next four years. The current Farm Bill contributes around $6 billion annually to private land conservation programs, so this legislation would nearly double funding for popular and proven conservation efforts that boost resilience to natural hazards, such as drought, and enhance fish and wildlife habitat.
This investment could not come at a better time. Right now, roughly 40 percent of applicants for USDA conservation programs are denied each year, primarily due to a lack of funding, leaving tens of millions of acres of habitat conservation on the table. The new funding in this bill will begin to meet the outstanding demand for conservation from farmers, ranchers, and landowners.
What this means for hunters and anglers: More quality habitat and huntable acreage, cleaner water, and more abundant fish and wildlife populations, thanks to new funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and other initiatives.
Improvements to Energy Leasing and Development
The agreement includes several reforms to energy leasing that balance responsible development on our public lands with other values, like habitat and access, and align with both the Department of the Interior’s Leasing Report and many of the TRCP’s previous recommendations.
For example, the bill increases minimum bids and rental rates for oil and gas leases to ensure that the American public receives a fair return on the use of shared resources, while eliminating the practice of non-competitive leasing that often wastes valuable BLM staff time and resources. Perhaps most notably, the legislation would increase federal bonding rates, which haven’t been updated in decades, to ensure funds are available to restore fish and wildlife habitat if an operator abandons an oil and gas well site.
What this means for hunters and anglers: Together, these provisions ensure responsible energy development can move forward where it’s appropriate, while also recognizing other uses of our public lands like hunting, fishing, and other forms of outdoor recreation.
Rachel Biggs, Forest Service Silviculturist surveys the North Mills Area, Pisgah Ranger District, Pisgah National Forest, NC. (Forest Service photo by Cecilio Ricardo)
Investments in Forests, Coasts, and Public Lands
The agreement recognizes the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change and puts major resources behind efforts to protect coastal and marine habitats, maintain healthy forests, and restore watersheds. For example, the draft legislation provides $2.6 billion to support coastal resilience projects and nearly $5 billion for forest management across public and private land, including support for partnerships with downstream water users to improve forest and watershed health. It also includes $500 million for habitat conservation and ecosystem restoration projects on Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service Lands, and $100 million to rebuild and restore units of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
What this means for hunters and anglers: More wetland and reef restoration projects along the coasts, riparian and wet meadow restoration in forested watersheds, active forest management near communities, and invasive species removal and access improvements across our public lands. These efforts would expand hunting and fishing opportunities, all while protecting communities from natural hazards like wildfire and sea-level rise.
Photo by USDA NRCS Montana.
Capacity to Get More Work Done Faster
Much of the funding in the Inflation Reduction Act is intended to build on existing work and expand partnerships, whether that’s with farmers and ranchers, water users, or other local stakeholders. To do so, federal agencies will need the staff and resources to review and approve projects and make local connections. Fortunately, the draft bill provides millions of dollars to supercharge environmental reviews, authorizations, planning, and permitting across the various federal agencies. The agreement also provides $1 billion for conservation technical assistance to ensure that well-trained staff are available locally to meet with producers and process applications for private lands conservation programs.
What this means for hunters and anglers: In the end, these under-the-radar—but very important—funding streams will get more money out the door faster. That should mean more habitat conservation, restoration, and recreational access across the board.
Photo by RimLight Media
But Isn’t This a Partisan Bill?
Admittedly, the budget reconciliation process can leave a lot to be desired. To begin with, reconciliation legislation only requires the support of a majority, or 50 votes, to pass the Senate, which means it is not often a bipartisan process or bill. Further, while the process has been used by both parties to advance priorities, by rule, the final bill is limited to spending and revenue measures, with little room for extraneous policy. As a result, federal agencies often have wide leeway to determine how and where the reconciliation funding they receive is distributed.
If the Inflation Reduction Act is passed, hunters and anglers have a lot riding on these decisions, and the TRCP will be working alongside decision-makers to drive outcomes that increase hunting and fishing opportunities and sustain fish and wildlife habitat for decades to come.
Senators Introduce North American Grasslands Conservation Act
The legislative solution is modeled after the successful North American Wetlands Conservation Act and would empower private landowners to restore disappearing grasslands and sagebrush
Today, Senators Ron Wyden, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet introduced the North American Grasslands Conservation Act in an effort to conserve and expand iconic grassland landscapes for wildlife, ranchers, and rural communities. If passed, the bill will widely be considered one of the most significant steps for grassland conservation efforts in the 21st century.
“The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership applauds today’s introduction of the North American Grasslands Conservation Act—it’s an idea that is already popular with hunters and anglers, who understand what is at stake for grassland and sagebrush species and have seen what success looks like where private land investments have improved waterfowl habitat across the country,” says Whit Fosburgh, TRCP’s president and CEO. “This legislation would create willing partners in habitat restoration where they are needed most, boosting big game and upland bird species. It would also fund conservation jobs, invest in the health of the outdoor recreation economy, and support the future of working landscapes. We thank senators Wyden, Klobuchar, and Bennet for their leadership and look forward to working with decision-makers on both sides of the aisle to advance this smart, proven conservation solution.”
The North American Grasslands Conservation Act would help kickstart the voluntary protection and restoration of grasslands and sagebrush shrub-steppe ecosystems by creating a landowner-driven, incentive-based program to conserve these imperiled landscapes. There’s urgency right now to maintain these systems for agriculture, wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, and future generations of hunters and anglers, while supporting ranchers, farmers, Tribal Nations, and rural communities.
Grasslands and sagebrush habitats are considered some of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. More than 70 percent of America’s tallgrass, mixed grass, and shortgrass prairies have vanished, followed by the precipitous decline of grassland bird populations, which have plummeted more than 40 percent since 1966. Additionally, the grazing lands that have sustained generations of ranchers are dwindling, and species from pronghorn antelope and elk to bobwhite quail and pheasants are struggling to navigate the places they used to call home.
Conservation organizations across the country, including the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, National Wildlife Federation, North American Grouse Partnership, World Wildlife Fund, Izaak Walton League of America, Wildlife Mississippi, National Deer Association, Land Trust Alliance, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, American Bird Conservancy, and the Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance have all been advocating for this effort since fall 2020.
This Provision in the Bill Gutting Pittman-Robertson Makes It Even More Dangerous
Feeling outraged about the RETURN Act and its threat to conservation funding? Well, it gets worse
The recent introduction of the RETURN our Constitutional Rights Act of 2022, also known as the RETURN Act and H.R. 8167, has rightly shocked and outraged sportsmen and sportswomen, who proudly contribute to America’s successful conservation funding model through our firearm, ammunition, and other gear purchases.
If you’ve been following the story, you know the bill’s goal is to obliterate Pittman-Robertson funding—which allows state wildlife agencies to make habitat improvements, enhance hunting and fishing access, run hunter’s education programs, and create public shooting ranges across the country. It purports to use other “unobligated” federal funds in a misguided attempt to replace the excise taxes, shifting the cost to every American taxpayer and undercutting the role of hunters and anglers in conservation.
But it actually gets worse.
In digging into the bill language, our experts have found that the RETURN Act only replaces P-R excise taxes with funding for non-game species conservation—diverting funds that have historically helped to restore and maintain populations of whitetail deer, elk, wild turkeys, bass, walleyes, and trout and spending it on salamanders and butterflies.
At best, this is a disastrous oversight. At worst, it is yet another red flag for the fundamental misunderstanding of some lawmakers when it comes to how our country’s conservation model works.
Hunters and anglers, meanwhile, are not confused about our essential role in conservation. We asked for Pittman-Robertson and the Dingell-Johnson Act (the fishing equivalent of P-R) decades ago to ensure the future of our outdoor recreation opportunities. We have more recently championed the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act to fund the proactive conservation of our most at-risk game and non-game species. And we’ll continue to stand up for conservation funding today and into the future.
Add your voice to this outcry: Take action using our simple advocacy tool to urge your representative to oppose the RETURN Act. Public backlash has already prompted three co-sponsors to pull their support for this bill. Keep the momentum going and keep America’s proud conservation traditions working for fish and game.
Sportspersons Commend Colo. BLM for Prioritizing Big Game Seasonal Habitats
Updating land management plans will result in better-informed decisions and conservation of high-priority big game habitats on Colorado public lands
Sportspersons applauded today’s announcement that the Colorado Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will formally and consistently incorporate big game seasonal habitat and migration corridor conservation into its land management plans. To do so, the agency has initiated an important land management plan amendment process. The BLM states that the primary purpose of the effort is to evaluate “alternative management approaches for the BLM planning decisions to maintain, conserve, and protect big game corridors and other important big game habitat areas on BLM-managed public lands and minerals in Colorado.”
“Robust elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep populations are important not only because they provide Colorado’s sportspersons with world-class hunting opportunities, they are core to our state’s identity and absolutely critical for our tourism industry,” said Liz Rose, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Colorado field representative. “We appreciate the leadership demonstrated by the Colorado BLM, and we hope this planning effort takes a habitat-centric view that focuses on the conservation and enhancement of these habitats, including habitat restoration and improvement and managing development pressures like high-density recreation and renewable and conventional energy development.”
The continued health of migratory big game populations depends upon their ability to move between suitable habitats seasonally, year after year. Of the 8.3 million acres of BLM-managed public land in Colorado, millions of acres constitute high-priority seasonal and migratory habitats for big game animals such as elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. These herds help support Colorado’s $5 billion-dollar hunting, fishing, and wildlife-watching economy, and conserving the habitats on which they depend also directly supports a broad range of other wildlife species that benefit from intact landscapes.
The majority of Colorado BLM’s existing Resource Management Plans are outdated, some of them decades old. These Resource Management Plans do not adequately reflect recent science demonstrating the dependence of migratory big game animals on various landscapes and habitats throughout the year and the need to be able to move freely between those seasonal habitats. By amending those land-use plans that overlap with high-priority big game habitats, the agency will increase consistency in management and decision-making in areas where it matters most for ensuring that elk, deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep herds continue to thrive in Colorado.
Conservationists are optimistic that this process will create valuable opportunities for investments in habitat restoration on BLM-managed public land, in turn bolstering private-land conservation efforts across Colorado.
“Conserving and connecting big game animals’ high-priority seasonal and migratory habitats helps build more climate-resilient ecosystems that wildlife will utilize as conditions on the ground continue to change,” said Rose. “By updating its plans and ensuring that management decisions are based on the best and latest science, the BLM will ensure a brighter future for Colorado’s wildlife, residents, and visitors.”
The BLM “seeks information related to all high-density activities and public land uses that may cause disturbance to important big game habitat and will consider that information as appropriate in determining if additional land use planning decisions are appropriate to incorporate into the scope of the alternatives for this planning effort.”
The deadline for comments from the public is September 2, 2022. The TRCP will be working closely with other partners representing hunters, anglers, and other wildlife conservationists as well as local officials, private landowners, and agency staff to provide the BLM with science-based guidance that will benefit Colorado’s big game animals, sportspersons, and those who reside in and around high-priority big game habitats.
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
