Public lands: Monumental

Hunting quail in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument: This land is your land.

By Corey Fisher

Here in the vast expanse of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in southern New Mexico, you get a sense of what public lands mean to sportsmen.

For the past few days, I’ve been walking this breathtaking desert landscape in pursuit of quail, but also a connection to a land that humans have been hunting, camping, hiking and rambling around on for eons. The proof is written in rocks – pictographs of bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, fish and etchings of hands that seem to reach out from the past and say, “I was here.”

It is a magical experience made possible by public lands and a tireless group of advocates who cherish this landscape and want to make sure these experiences are available to all Americans, long into the future.

This week, Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and 25 other sportsmen groups and businesses unveiled a new report that underscores the importance of national monuments to our sporting heritage—as well as the importance of doing them right. Read the release and the report here.

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The Antiquities Act, which authorizes the creation of National Monuments, is a tool, and like any tool there is a right and wrong way to use it. The report showcases some of sportsmen’s favorite national monuments—including the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Brown’s Canyon in Colorado and the Berryessa Snow Mountain in California– and offers guidelines to ensure that new national monument proposals are sportsmen-friendly and developed through a stakeholder-driven public process that includes state and local governments.

Among the takeaways:

• Many national monuments offer world-class hunting and fishing. For that to continue, new proposals need to be locally driven, transparent, incorporate the science-based management and conservation of important fish and wildlife habitat, and uphold hunting and fishing opportunities.

• In today’s Congress, even widely supported, bipartisan public lands proposals are often held hostage in unrelated political fights. The Antiquities Act offers a path forward to see these conservation initiatives through when Congress is unwilling or unable to act.

• Any new National Monument has to be grounded in collaboration and local solutions for public land management. This report includes criteria to ensure that happens. For sportsmen, recreationists, solitude seekers, and all Americans, public lands are a birthright that we must safeguard for the future.

Yes, there are legitimate concerns and differences of opinion about how best to manage and use these lands. But through smart planning and good-faith cooperation, we can find lasting solutions.

Extremists like those who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have proven that they have no interest in working together to solve land management challenges – they simply want to steal our public lands. On the other hand, sportsmen have been, are, and will continue to be at the table to find common ground and implement collaborative solutions for public land management.

This report details how to do just that when and where a National Monument makes sense.

Corey Fisher is senior policy director for Trout Unlimited’s Sportsmen Conservation Project.