Public lands are the fabric that binds America together, part of our shared national heritage.
Hunters and anglers understand this fact better than most, as our federally owned lands and waters, including national forests, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and other public places provide irreplaceable opportunities for hunting and fishing, as well as innumerable other outdoor activities.
Consequently, American sportsmen were dismayed by the recent introduction of an amendment by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to the draft U.S. Senate budget that would support and fund state efforts to take possession of federal public lands – a thinly-veiled land grab ploy by those who would sell public lands to private corporations and individuals for development, taking away our access to public lands hunting and fishing.
However, here in Colorado we’re lucky to have two U.S. senators who won’t support this misguided effort to liquidate our public estate: They both voted no on the amendment.
Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of extremist ideologues in our midst, and nationally an organized, concerted movement is underway to sell off and limit access to our public lands and waters. One group leading the charge (and attacking hunters and anglers to boot) is the deceptively named Environmental Policy Alliance.
The outfit behind this group is Berman & Co., a Washington, D.C., based PR firm. Berman’s work includes lobbying against minimum wages, paid sick leave and affordable health care for working Americans.
They also worked to block legislation on food safety. But the cream of their lobbying efforts must be their fight to legalize (nope, not a typo) drunken driving.
Details on Berman’s tactics and strategies are available at: www.bermanexposed.org As users – and owners – of America’s great public estates, hunters and anglers must join together and fight back against this effort to sell our public lands to private corporations and other special interests.
We need to fight to keep public lands in public hands.
For additional information, visit: www.backcountryhunters.org.
David Lien, chairman, Colorado Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
Colorado Springs