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Hands-On Event Exposes Students to Outdoor Recreation, Conservation Career Paths
MOA Fest, offered at locations around the country by TRCP partner Minority Outdoor Alliance, teaches hunting, fishing, and conservation skills and ideals
Earlier this month I was able to join one of our partner organizations, Minority Outdoor Alliance, for their annual MOA Fest. This festival has been held in various states throughout the country, including Texas, Alabama, and earlier this month, Pennsylvania.
The event is designed to allow college students who have had limited or no exposure to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation the opportunity to explore activities and careers in the outdoor and conservation space. Students are given the freedom to try new activities such as mountain biking, clay shooting, and rappelling. This year I watched as students from Temple University and Bucks County Community College kayaked, drew compound bows, and cast fly rods for the first time. Students were also able to participate in a community service project – planting and caging native trees in a local park. The setting was ideal to talk about conservation issues in Pennsylvania, where TRCP unifies the voices of hunters, anglers, and conservationists around key initiatives and works to ensure clean water, enhanced fisheries, and better public access and opportunities.
Husband and wife team and co-founders, Durrell and Ashley Smith, started the Minority Outdoor Alliance in the summer of 2020, and soon after offered the first MOA Fest.
“We are incredibly grateful to our dedicated sponsors and partners for making MOA Fest a reality each year,” said MOA President Durrell Smith. “The goals of the festival are unity and expanding the capacity of the host agency by serving as a bridge to connect younger and broader audiences with recreation opportunities and career opportunities in the outdoors.”
“Watching students ask questions about how their current educational paths could intersect with the conservation industry was exciting to see.”
While it is always thrilling for students to watch a bird dog demonstration or to learn to cook wild game, MOA also expands participants’ ideas about what it takes to work in conservation and the outdoors. Many of the students who attend MOA Fest each year are from urban areas where spending time in the outdoors may not have been a focal point of their childhoods. When asked what types of careers they think are available, many are surprised to hear that they do not have to be park rangers or biologists to succeed.
The career fair portion of MOA Fest is an opportunity for the local state agencies and partner organizations to let students know about the various professional options available to them. Watching students ask questions about how their current educational paths could intersect with the conservation industry was exciting to see. Law majors discovered there is plenty of work to do in policy at all levels of government and communications majors heard about the teams at various agencies that are dedicated to sharing information across every platform. Facilitating conversations about their ability to protect our environment in diverse ways, early on in these students’ degree paths, may lead some to careers in the outdoors that they may never have considered if not exposed to an event like MOA Fest.
“The unity and diversity we witness at MOA Fest are reminders that the outdoors is a place for all to cherish.”
Durrell Smith, MOA president
What truly makes MOA Fest unique is the focus on underrepresented communities in the outdoor space. Students who have spent their lives in urban areas, with no regular exposure to all the great outdoors have to offer, are often shocked at the number of careers that are available. Being able to actively and effectively interact with this community of students is an asset to the outdoor and conservation space. Their unique perspectives and experiences will do nothing but enhance our collective ability to think nimbly and critically about issues central to our mission as we move into the future of conservation.
MOA has created a space where students are free to ask questions, try new things, and network with industry professionals across the conservation and outdoor industry. Their dedication to making the outdoors accessible to everyone and their goal of “Uniting Communities for Joy and Conservation” is truly embodied in this important event.
“MOA believes in the unity of humanity and in fostering authentic connections through shared experiences in the natural world,” Durrell shared with me. “The joy of seeing individuals connect with dogs, sporting traditions, and conservation leadership reaffirms our mission and fills us with pride. The unity and diversity we witness at MOA Fest are reminders that the outdoors is a place for all to cherish and a place for collective care and stewardship.”
For more information about MOA and events it offers, click here.
Banner image of Durrell Smith with bird dog credit MOA.
TRCP Supports Continued Access to World-Class Opportunities on BLM Lands in Northern Alaska
The Central Yukon Resource Management Plan Record of Decision maintains important habitat and recreation opportunities
This week, the Bureau of Land Management released the Record of Decision for the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan that will manage 13.3 million acres of BLM lands in northern Alaska. This conclusion of the RMP process comes after more than a decade of engagement with local residents, Alaska Native Tribes, hunters and anglers, and conservation and development interests.
The RMP will guide landscape-level management and the various uses allowed on BLM lands in this region for the next 20 or more years. The plan includes management strategies to ensure outstanding hunting and fishing opportunities remain along the Dalton Corridor and outlines steps to prepare for the growing recreational demand that is expected to increase over the next two decades. In addition, the RMP maintains existing conservation safeguards to uphold the quality hunting, fishing, and other recreational opportunities of the region and incorporates specific habitat management areas for caribou and Dall sheep.
The Central Yukon planning area is home to iconic big game species such as Dall sheep, moose, and caribou and 25 species of fish. The area is accessed by most hunters and anglers by the Dalton Highway Corridor. BLM-managed lands along the “Haul Road” provide important habitat connectivity between several conservation units that are prized by hunters and anglers, including five national wildlife refuges.
“TRCP thanks the BLM for including habitat-focused conservation in the ROD, and for balancing conservation and development interests,” said Michael O’Casey, deputy director of Forest Policy & Northwest Programs for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “We appreciate the agency’s responsiveness to requests from the hunting and fishing community who has been involved in this plan revision for many years.”
Hunters and Anglers Support the BLM Lakeview Field Office’s Final Resource Management Plan Amendment
Final plan includes a proposed management approach that would conserve big game habitat, ranching, and outdoor recreation
Today, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership applauds the release of the BLM Lakeview Field Office’s Final Resource Management Plan Amendment, which would establish a blueprint for the conservation and management of nearly 3.2 million acres of southeastern Oregon’s public lands for the next 20 years or more.
“The Lakeview RMPA revision was an important opportunity to improve the management of these public lands, and we appreciate the many hunters and anglers who weighed in on this plan to advocate for the region’s wild and working landscapes,” said Tristan Henry, Oregon field representative for the TRCP. “The plan’s proposed alternative would conserve undeveloped backcountry and wildlife corridors essential for big game and other wildlife across this intact landscape.”
Hunters and anglers have been involved in the Lakeview plan revision since 2014, and the release of the Final RMPA is a significant step in a public process that will determine how wild landscapes, wildlife habitat, recreation, grazing, development, and other uses will be balanced. Tribal governments, wildlife agencies, the Southeast Oregon Resource Advisory Council, and members of the public provided valuable input and feedback during the planning process. The BLM considered approximately 1,300 comments while developing the plan amendment.
“We commend the BLM’s dedication to a balanced plan that upholds sustainable use, working lands, and conservation, all of which ensure quality hunting and fishing opportunities in the Lakeview District will endure for future generations,” said Michael O’Casey, TRCP’s Deputy Director of Forest Policy & Northwest Programs.
The TRCP and its partners are committed to supporting an ultimate Record of Decision and final plan that prioritizes habitat conservation of backcountry landscapes, while also supporting active land stewardship for restoration and sustainable economic activities like ranching, hunting, and recreation.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
BLM’s Final Greater Sage Grouse Plan Amendments Will Direct Management Across 10 Western States
TRCP emphasizes the need to finalize plans, turn to implementation to advance conservation on the ground
(Washington, D.C.)—The Bureau of Land Management has announced its final greater sage grouse plan amendments that will guide management of 65 million acres of sage grouse habitat across 10 Western states.
“After more than a decade of collaboration between federal and state agencies, private landowners, industry and NGOs to revise management plans to conserve the greater sage grouse, we thank the BLM for their efforts to finalize these amendments,” said Madeleine West, interim vice president of Western conservation for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “This milestone must be a marker that ends the cycles of planning and moves attention back to on-the-ground management to benefit the sagebrush ecosystem and the Western communities that rely on it.”
Since 2012, the BLM has engaged in three separate planning efforts to amended management plans to conserve the greater sage grouse and its habitat for the purpose of preventing the need for federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. The first set of plan amendments were finalized in 2015 in tandem with a determination by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the greater sage grouse did not warrant ESA protections. This effort was a result of unprecedented collaboration between state and federal agencies, private landowners, industry and NGOs. The BLM initiated a new round of planning in 2018 to enhance cooperation and improve alignment with the state plans or management strategies. Legal deficiencies found in those plans, finalized in 2020, required the BLM to initiate this latest cycle of plan amendments, now for the third time.
The planning area for the BLM’s plan amendments is nearly 121 million acres of sagebrush ecosystem – the largest terrestrial biome in the Lower 48 at over 165 million acres across the West. It is home to the iconic greater sage grouse as well as 350 other fish and wildlife species, many of which are game species valued for the hunting and fishing opportunity they allow. A 2022 U.S. Geological Survey report revealed that half of the original sagebrush ecosystem has been lost at a rate of approximately 1.3 million acres each year over the last two decades. Numerous fish and wildlife species depend upon this ecosystem, but so do rural economies such as agriculture, hunting and fishing and outdoor recreation, which makes reversing the decline a priority for all Westerners.
“With these new plans, the BLM has removed some poison pills that existed in the 2015 plans, retained important changes included in the plans finalized in 2020 to respect state authorities, and incorporated updated science to reflect our improved understanding of ecosystem needs over the last decade,” added West. “TRCP looks forward to working with the BLM, state agencies, and other public land users to implement these plans in a durable, lasting manner that has the greatest positive impact on sage grouse and Western communities.”
The BLM is accepting protests on the plan until December 16, 2024. Documents are available on the agency’s eplanning website.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
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