Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 925: What's Next for Public Lands? with Land Tawney

Transcript

Ep. 925: What's Next for Public Lands? with Land Tawney · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Land Tawny, the co chair
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: of American Hunters and Anglers, to discuss the recent battle
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: over public lands and what we should be looking forward
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: to and expecting in the coming weeks and months when
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: it comes to public lands and future threats. All right,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation Initiative.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And today we're talking public lands, and we are talking
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: about a recent controversy that's been brewing the last few
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: months that hopefully you're aware of. Hopefully you've seen this
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: either here on my social media or on the wire
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Dunt podcast or the Mediator podcast or Kales podcasts, or
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: across many other platforms that have been talking about what's happening.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: But in short, we have been experiencing a series of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: different proposals to sell off public lands and these proposals
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: were a part of the One Big Beautiful Bill that's
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: been debated in the House and Senate and recently signed
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: into law by President Trump. And these proposals were talking
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: about doing everything from selling off hundreds of thousands of
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: acres of our federal public lands up to maybe as
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: much as three million acres of public lands. And as
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: again I hope you are aware, there was this massive
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: opposition to that, this massive pushback from hunters and anglers
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and outdoor folks of all types, and ultimately we were
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: able to get the sale provision pulled out. There are
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: many other things still included in this bill that passed
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that do impact public lands, but the sale part was
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: taking out. And so today what I want to do
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: is talk about what just happened, what we can learn
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: from it, what we can take from it and apply
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to future advocacy and push back when the next thing happens,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: when the next threat to our public lands or wildlife
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: or waters appears, and then finally take a deep dive
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: into what those next threats might be, what's coming down
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the pipeline, what was still included in this bill the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: past that impacts hunters and anglers and outdoor people and wildlife,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and what are some of these other things being proposed
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: right now or that might be coming that could impact
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: our access to public lands, our abilities to hunt or
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: fish or do anything out on these places. So that's
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the topic today. Our guest is someone who has a
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: tremendous amount of experience in this world in advocating for
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: these things and rallying grassroots support to do something like
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: we just did stop this public land sale. And that
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: person that guest is Land. Tawny Land was the former
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. He worked
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: previously to that for the National Wildlife Federation and the
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and he now is the co
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: chair of a new organization called American Hunters and Anglers,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: And he and his organization were deeply involved in the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: grassroots pushback against this public land sale as well. And
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: he's been deeply engaged in many of these previous battles
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: for more than a quarter century. He's been working on
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: this stuff, so he has a deep well of knowledge
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: about what's happening, what's happened in the past, and what's
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: likely to come down the pipe in the coming weeks, months,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and years. So that's why Land is the guy to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: talk to you here today. We're going to cover all
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: those things, what's happened, what's happening now, what could come
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: in the future, and then what we can do as
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: individuals to make sure that we stop the next one
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: and the next one after that, and making sure that
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: we have quality places to hunt and fish or backpacking
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: camp or simply have wild open space or wild animals
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: still out there or wildfish in the rivers. All of
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that is in the game plan today. It's a great chap.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I'm excited for you to tune in. I'm excited for
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: you to be inspired and educated by Land and to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: get out there and continue fighting the good fight yourself.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're doing today. Very quick update. This
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: hat that I'm wearing if you're watching on video, is
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: a brand new hat for Wired Hunt. It's over on
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the meat Eater store. If you're interested in repping this
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: pretty cool camo vintage whitetail hat yourself, you can check
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: it out at the meat eater dot com. Navigate to
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the shop. You'll find it there, as well as a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of new hats and other logo were so
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: check that out if you're interested in Otherwise, let's get
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to my chap with land Tonic. All right, joining me
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: back on the show is mister land Tawny. Welcome back,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: land Mark.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Great to see you.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: You as well. I'm glad that we have occasion to
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: spend some time together. I wish he was under better circumstances.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Our topic today is not necessarily a fun one, but
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: glad to see your face again.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Land Well, thank you. Sometime we're going to have to
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: get out in the woods and waters and do this
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: in a proper way.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I agree with that one hundred percent agree with that.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I feel like last time, did you float the Smith
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: this spring? Was that right? I think we were talking
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: earlier this year and you were just about to or
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: just had.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no wet the foot of the Smith first week
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: of May.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So maybe one of these days when you
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: pull that permit next time, invite me along and then
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: we can do this.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Well, see there there could be a trade somewhere. You know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: that's such a special place that you need to experience,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: especially if it stays the way it is hopefully right now.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's let's just get into it,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: because there's a lot to talk about. We probably don't
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: have enough time to talk about everything. Anyone who has
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: a pulse that has been you know, a hunter or angler,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: or really anyone who pays attention to the outdoors in
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: any kind of way, probably over the last two months
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: has seen what's been going on with our public lands.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: They've heard about this public lands sale that was going
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: to be included in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We've
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: talked about it quite a bit across the media to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: properties both here and Cal's podcast and Mediator proper. But
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: what I haven't got to do on this show yet
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: is really do like a like a what's the right word,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: like a debriefing of what just happened, what we can
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: learn from it, and what's coming next. And so that
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: is the the job I'm signing you up for. Are
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: you Are you game to take on that role and
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: to kind of go down that road with me.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Let's do this.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so you have been around the block, you
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: have seen this before, you've been deep engage in this
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: set of issues. We saw something pretty similar to this
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: back in twenty seventeen during the whole Chavitz deal. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I'm curious, you've just seen over the last two months
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: this multiple different iterations of attempts to sell off public
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: lands simultaneous to this rising of awareness within the outdoor
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and hunting a fishing community around what's happening in opposition
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: to it what we just saw. How is it different
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: in any kind of way from what we've seen in
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the past.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Great question, and thank you. I think that, you know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: the first piece that I would say is different is
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: back when Schaefis was trying to sell over three million
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: acres of public land that had nothing to do with
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: like tax breaks for billionaires. Like this is a totally
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: different mechanism, I would say. And so the iteration you
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: saw in the House and then in you know, the
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: two versions or three versions however many you want to
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: count from Senator Lee in the Senate, those were all
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: to payoff tax breaks for billionaires. And so I think
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: that's like a different scenario as far as what happened
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: with Congressman Schafitz. I would also say that what's different
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: this time is it's all being talked about as an
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: affordable housing right. That's kind of like the issue dejure
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: to talk about how to sell our public lands is
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: to talk about affordable housing. And so that's a new
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: tactic I think that Senator Mike Lee in particular has
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: grabbed onto and one that we're gonna hear more often.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: And I think the third thing that I guess I
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: would say was different. I felt like back in twenty
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: seventeen it was really the sportsman's community, hunters and anglers
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: that led the pushback, and that was definitely seeing this
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: last go around. In fact, I think the breadth and
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: depth of that was even bigger. I mean, I think
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: that from brands to influencers, to individuals to organizations, that
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: pushback this time was way heavier than it was in
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. But I think in addition to that, the
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: rest of the outdoor community, so the mountain bikers and
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: the kayakers and the hike and the paddlers, like they
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: showed up in droves this time too. Like I think
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: the Outdoor Alliance in particular with Adam Kramer over there,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Nicole Brown, I mean, they just crushed it as far
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: as getting people to get engaged, and so that you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: to me, I think it's like probably three big differences
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: is again kind of the difference of where it was
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: like proposed and this reconciliation bill. I think that the
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: overall idea of affordable housing, and then the third is
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: just the automatic pushback which is had created so different
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: but very similar.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's one of those things where the whole
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: time this was going on, I kept thinking that twenty
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: seven to twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen, it was all a
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: dress rehearsal, or it was all like a training ground
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: for this moment, because I felt like that primed the
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: pump for our communities and we were able to stop that.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: But I felt like this felt like the big one
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: that we were now so much better prepared. There were
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: so many people who learned about this stuff back in
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen and eighteen and became aware of it, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: now eight years later it was like, Oh, it's this
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: thing again. Now we know what's going on. It wasn't
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: like we were having to convince people that selling or
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: transferring our public linds were bad. We weren't having to
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: like establish stuff foundation as much. It was like, Oh,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: this this thing is back in a more serious way
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: than ever, and everyone was able to activate. Did it
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: feel that way to you.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, it totally felt like that way to me. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: think that, you know that this time it also felt
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: like that these are on one side or the other,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: right like there like this last time, like I think
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: that it wasn't quite as much of a call to
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: action in our community in particular, but this time it
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: was like if you weren't saying anything about it, like
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: who the heck are you right, like at that point,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: And so I think that was different. But yeah, the
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: training grounds and I think that you know, a lot
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: of the tactics that got used back when you know,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Schaefletz was around, when Instagram was just kind of first starting,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: right and remember all the comments that were on his
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: page going back months on posts that he had done
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: had nothing to do, you know, with with you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: the sale of public lands, but people were mad. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: so I think that people remembered those tactics. And I
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: think that, you know, besides the emails that were sent
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: insides of the phone calls that were made, there was
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: a ton of stuff that happened on social media. And
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, one other thing I think it
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: would be different this time is that individuals stepped up
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: and did their own videos, you know, and like, these
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: are people with big followings, These are people with you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: you know, a couple of hundred followers, but they took
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: it upon themselves to use social media to voice their opposition.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: I think collectively that noise. Man, it was overwhelming for
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: you know, elected leaders, and that's what we exactly wanted
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so here's another thing that stood up to me.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And I'm curious if you notice this or if it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: just like selective bias on you know, like when you
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: buy if you buy a Tacoma, all of a sudden,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: you start noticing everybody else as Tacoma's right. So maybe
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: this is that effect. But it did feel like this.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Over the last couple of months, the idea of calling
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: your elected officials became more public, became more like, the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: intimidation factor around it, I think disappeared for a lot
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of people I heard. I had stories from more people
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: than I've ever heard of, average folks who have never
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: done this before, who all of a sudden were like, Okay,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I'm finally doing it, and then everyone being like, oh,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: it's not so bad, it's easy, you should do it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I've heard of more people making phone calls this time
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: around than ever before. And I'm wondering if A, if
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: you think that's true, and it b if that is true,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: which I think it is. That's like a huge silver
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: lining coming out of all this, because I think we
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: maybe have like removed like a safety off the bear
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: spray for our community that all of a sudden they realize, Okay,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: now we know how to use this thing and we
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: can use it again that in the past we haven't.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Does that resonate with you?
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Just don't spread on yourself. No, I think it totally
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: does resonate with me. And I think that you know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: it's easy to send an email, and I think that
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: you know, the feedback that we're getting is that email
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: just doesn't really cut through the noise a phone call does, right,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: And I think that it is scary, But when you
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: see other people doing it, and then like when you
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: have something that you care so much about, mark like
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: that you care so much about and it's halady to
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: be taken away from you, you're willing to take that
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: risk and get on the phone and make a phone
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: call because it matters so much to you, And then
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: you realize it's not as big of a deal and
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: you tell your friends and then they you know, I
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: think that that that momentum builds. But I would totally
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: agree that that the phone calls this time around. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, I credit folks like you that
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: made phone calls like on camera, right, like you know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: this is that easy, right, I'm gonna make a phone
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: call right here. And I think that when people see that,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: they're like, Okay, maybe it doesn't so scary.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really isn't. I've yet to have anyone
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: argue with me or or quibble with my perspective. Uh.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Usually it's it's just a sad, lonely, overworked intern. Just
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: it's gonna take whatever you say down.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: They're so yeah, they're keeping score right, like they're you know,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: they're taking your name and where you're from them, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: it matters if you're from that state, Like it really matters.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Not that should stop us from calling let's say, people
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: like Mike Lee, but they're keeping a tally, right, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: so they're just and the more that they get then
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: they're going to go report that to the boss. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: so you may be getting you know that overwork intern.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: As you say, one be polite to them, they may
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: be chief of staff at some point. You should also
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: just treat everybody with respect anyways, but that stuff does
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: trickle up.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Are there any other I hate to say wins,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: but like a silver lining to what we just experienced
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: and everything that's gone on. Are there any of the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: things that came out of this? And I say all
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: this with the realization that we'll get to the fact
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: that it's not really done. There's there's much more going on.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: But we did just kind of win a battle. We
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: won a small battle in a larger war. A bunch
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: of other stuff that's not great still happen, which we'll
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: talk about here in a second. But coming out of
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the fact that one big, beautiful bill has passed, we
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: got a little portion of it taken out. Is there
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: any else? Is there anything else you take away from
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: this moment, from this several month experience, the way as
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the community went through through this win, anything else you
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: would take out either as just a is a key
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: takeaway or a silver lining or something we can learn from.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people say you learn you
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: know more from losses than you do from wins, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: I kind of think that's bullshit, especially right now, Like,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: you know, we think about what just happened, and in
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: some ways it didn't surprise me. But also you never know, right,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: you never know what the people are going to do.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: There's so much that are coming at us on so
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: many fronts. Is this going to be the place? And
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: it happened to be where everybody came together. And what
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: everybody should take away from that is, oh my goodness.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Look low democracy works when we all demand something. When
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: you are a Republican, Democrat, independent, you might not even
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: have voted in the last election, but when you use
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: your voice collectively, like when we use our voices collectively,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: like look what we can accomplish. And so, you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: as you said, like this was like a battle. I mean,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I like to I've been using this analogy. You know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: we're celebrating folks that got it out of there, which
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I think is totally awesome. But that's like celebrating the waiter,
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: you know, for plucking the hair out of the soup,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Like that's that hair should have never been in that
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: soup in the first place. And who are the damn cooks,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and how do we keep it out of
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: there going forward? And so I think we should celebrate it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: We all came together. The squeaky wheel still gets to
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: grease in this country. I'm very surprised that this is
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: kind of the issue, you know, that was the one
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: that brought us all together, But it also takes solace
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: in it. And in some ways I'm not surprised because
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I know that you know, these lands again, they don't
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: matter who you are, and they belong to all of us.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: And what a legacy that we have. And I think
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: people are really you know, whether that's you know, the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: education that's happened since twenty seventeen. Mark, I think you
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: made astute observation. You don't have to convince people this
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: is a bad idea. It was like a hell no,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: besides a very very small fraction. So that was great,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: and I think we should all take solace in that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, another thing that stood up to me
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: was that this was another terrific example of the influence
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: and impact we can have when we come together on
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: an issue across party lines, when we set aside whatever
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: team we like to say we're part of and instead
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: just focused on an issue and said, hey, maybe I'm
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: a Republican or maybe i'm a Democrat or maybe I'm
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: an independent, doesn't matter. This idea of selling off republic
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: lands is a bad idea. So I'm going to go
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: to a protest and stand next to the Maga hat
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: wearing or the rainbow T shirt wearing or the whatever
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: person right who cares, because we care about this thing
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: so much. And to your point that the wheel was
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: really squeaky when you stand up with all these different
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: types of people and you force people in power to listen,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: when they can't just say, oh, those are just the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: people that hate me anyways, when instead it's like the
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: people that hate you, the people that are kind of
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: on the fence about you, and the people who voted
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: for you, when they say, hey, this is a bad idea.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: That influence has changed, and that is something that we
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: need to remember today with the current administration. It's something
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: we need to remember three years from now, with the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: next administration and the next one and the next one,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: no matter who is in power. There are a lot
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: of folks out there who maybe have a different team
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: on their T shirt title, but we share many common interests,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: especially when it comes to public lands, waters, wildlife. We
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: can set aside whatever differences we have to come together
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: on these core shared things and actually see success because.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Of it totally. And I you know, I think the
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: sale of public lands is an easy one to come across.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: And we start talking about the management, you know, of
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: public lands, and that maybe is a different one to
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: coalesce around, right, But I think you learn some trust,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: maybe as you're saying, you know, and some you find
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: some shared common grounds so you can have conversations about
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: other issues. And I don't want to be too Pollyannis
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: and say that you know, now we're going to like
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: sing off the same sheet of music in our community forever.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: That's not going to happen. But I think when you
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: do have those shared experiences and that shared I guess
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: just ultimate goal and it's a great way to come together.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, you know, so goes public land,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: so goes America. And so if we can come together here,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I think we can work on other issues.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so we'd beat back this iteration of Mike
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Lee's public land sale. Our work's done, everything's good and
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: gold and moving forward.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Right, you know, that would be so awesome if we
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: could just right off into the sunset, get on the water,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: go out get in the woods, you know, and just relax,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: which you know, I think. Yeah, there's two things I
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: would say about that. One is that none of what
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: we have, this conversation that you and I are having
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: a day work, none of it happened by accident.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: There's been battles and I mean wins and losses for
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: you know, almost two hundred years of the modern day
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: kind of conservationist country and even longer than that. But like,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: like let's just remember that, you know, like this is
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: an ongoing thing that will never be over, and then
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, take some solid that, right, like
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: we get to be part of what's next. But what's
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: next is like the onslide is still here, Like you know,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: this is just like I think, using your words, like
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: this was a small victory in the overall war against
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: our public lands, in our public wildbite. Yeah.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So, so I want to talk through some of the
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: other things that were included in the bill that just passed,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: But before that, I just want to see if you
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: have heard any more details on a rumor that I've
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: heard a little bit, which is that Lee might be
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: still trying to introduce something separately in the somewhat near
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: future with some revised version of a land sell. Do
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: you have any word on that, any details on that,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: anything like that coming down the pipeine anything?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: No. I mean I saw a story from Kirk Siegler
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: this morning out of National Public Radio that's, you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: kind of mentioned that Mike Lee is going to you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: be introducing something soon. He's talked about it, you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: after he pulled it out. You know, I'm not done,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: you know, like, you know, thanks for the feedback, but
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I'm coming back for more, you know, And he's coming
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: back with it. You know what it will look like
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: and when I'm not sure, you know, if he does
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: bring it, bring it on, man, Like I just it
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: gives our community something to colss around. I get worried
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: at some level. It's a distraction though, from other things
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: that are going on, right, and so maybe that's there
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: playing chess and they're trying to distract us, and oh,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: we got this, and so now if you use our energy,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: we're not going to use it over here, right, And
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I worry about that a little bit.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I wonder the exact same thing, because what was interesting
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: was during this whole big beautiful bill debate when it
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: went through the House version, and the House version of
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: the sale was being debated. It took all the oxygen
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: out of the room, right Like, everyone in the hunt
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: fish and environmental space had to talk about the sale
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: because that was the big one. Nothing else could be
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: focused on. And then that park got pulled out. And
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden like, okay, let's look at
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: everything else that's in there. Oh, there's too at that time, like, oh,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Boundary Waters is still in there. Oh h the Arctic
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: National Wilife refuse drilling was still in there. Oh, like
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I think at that point, the Ambler Road thing was
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: still in So everyone's start focusing all these other things
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: that had been kind of hidden beneath the land sale.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: The Senate version comes around, all that stuff's in there,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: and then they say, hey, the land sales back. And
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: then again it sucks all the oxygen out of the room.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Nobody can focus on anything else. Nothing will break through
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: because importantly we had we focused on that. But there's
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: no way you can get a bunch of communities like
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: ours to be able to say like, oh, hey, we're
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: worry about point A and point B and point C
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and point D. That just doesn't doesn't work. So by
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: putting the land sale in there, it basically secures passage
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: for almost everything else because you just can't get enough
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: noise and attention around all these other issues. Yep, I've
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: wanted the same thing. It wasn't all a ploy to
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: get everything else through.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, we could be conspirabs theorists and maybe think that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I think this has been a ploy since the administration
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: of New Congress took over, and we're just going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: give you. I mean you talked about earlier. This is
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: like a shotgun approach, right, We're gonna shoot as many
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: things at you and you got to dodge all the
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: bullets are push things back, and so that's eventually something
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: mix it through, right, And so I think this is
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: an overall strategy. But do I think that they did
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: it on purpose for it the Arctic, you know, in particular,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: probably not. I think Mike Lee is so dogmatic about this.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: That's why. I mean, this guy's asked handed to him
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and he's talking about bringing it back right away. You know,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: if I was his senate colleagues, I'm like, one, why
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: are you wasting our time? Because we know what's going
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: to happen with this, And then Two, why you get
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: putting us on the spot like this is a the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you know, distraction the other things that we want to do,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: and the people have spoken and every single time you
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: bring this up, you're just gonna get slapped back. And
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I you know, Mike Lee is a lot more long
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: term about this mark as you know. And I think
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: that he's never going to change his tunes. So I
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: don't think it was a play on his point. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: think the overall strategy right now has just hit us
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: with so much flood the zone, right, I think there's
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: a way to say it, and so that we don't
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: know what to do right.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: So that said, within this bill, like setting everything else aside,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: like I don't care about anything else? Who cares in
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: this instance? Just focusing on things specific to public lands, waters, wildlife?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Like are this lane that we're talking about here? What
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: else within the bill that just passed are you most
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: concerned about or think that we most need to flag
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and be aware of, Like, oh, this thing happened, What
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: are the ramifications of this? Is there any you know,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: recourse we have? What stands out to you is the
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: most concerning things that are still in there.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I talked about one that isn't right.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: I think they took out the Boundary Waters, you know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: that House version it got passed, and then there was
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: this manager's amendment, which gets super nerdy, but they were
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: basically saying this thing in there is a poison bill
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: because it's not going to pass the rules mostly than anything.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: And so I think the Boundary Waters dots bullet there,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: you know. And then I got back over to the
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Senate and then that didn't get put in. I think
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: that was partly because the rule, but I also think
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: that you know, it's a special place and if you
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: if you can, Jill, you know, if you can, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: do a copper sulfide mine a quarter mile south of
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: the Boundary Waters, you could do that anywhere, right, I mean,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: you know that landscape, how important it is. And so
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: like I was happy that that was taken out. Something
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: that did make it through that we've already kind of
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: talked about is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: and what I hope people understand about the Artic National
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: while their refuge, and it was set aside when they
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: were doing more development, you know on the north slope,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Like this wasn't like this is, hey, let's just set
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: this thing aside for you know, shits and giggles. It
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: was done as a way to protect, you know, a
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: place while you were going to be defiling another place,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: right and so this Arctic national wile, that refuge which
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: I've never been to, but you just were there. I
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: guess this's I take that in the boundary waters and
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I bring them both up almost in the same venue.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Is that if you can go and destroy these places
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: or defile these places, you can do it anywhere. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: so they're like these things we put up on this pedestal,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: and if you can go there, then you can go anywhere.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And I and so that one that made it through,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you know, and the idea there are forcing leases, you know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: four hundred thousand acres. I I just you know, the
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: last go around of Lises, it didn't go well, you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: like not many people bought you know, like these leases,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: and so we'll see what happens. Just go around with it.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: I do that you're forcing leases is just ridiculous to me.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: So that's a major one I think in my mind
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: for sure, not only if you have thoughts about that one.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I echo everything that you just said. There,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: it's a it's a place where you know, the vast
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: majority of the Arctic is open to drilling and leasing
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: in many parts on the on the western Arctic side,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: there's this rare slice of coastal habitat left that's untouched.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: That's part of this last great intact ecosystem, that's the
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: calving ground for the last caribou herd that's not precipitously declining.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: You can go on and on and on with like
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the superlatives about this place. I mean, to your point like,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: are there a few last places that we don't have
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to do this too? And unfortunately it seems like some
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: folks don't think so. But yeah, after getting to experience
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: it myself and just really recognize what a rare resource
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: that is on its own as it is, it's heartbreaking
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to think of that changing. But there's there's there's unfortunately
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: many examples of that, whether it's the Boundary Waters or
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the southern part of the Brooks Range where the Ambler
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Road is proposed, or I mean many other places I'm
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: sure we're gonna talk about. So that's uh, as you
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, it's it's been going on for decades and
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: decades and decades. And it was funny when I wrote
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: my book, you know, six years ago or seven years
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: ago or whatever, it was, what I realized was that
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: thing right there, which is that as long as we
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: have had this public land system, have had these debates,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: we have had these fights, We have had these battles.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And from one perspective, that can be like really discouraging
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: when you recognize, like, oh, wow, this has been going
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: on forever, It's going to continue forever. As long as
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: we have these places, people will see dollar signs and
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: want it. So that can be depressing, But on the
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: flip side, it can also be encouraging because every single
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: time there's been one of those threats, one of those battles,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: one of those fights, there have been hunters and anglers
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and outdoor recreators and conservationists of all stripes and types
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: who have stood up and spoke out and fought back.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And we've won a whole lot of those battles, not
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: all of them, but we've won a lot. And so
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: it's kind of like in our in our DNA a
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: little bit. It's what we do. We protect these places,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: and there's precedent that we can win some of them,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: So that is encouraging in some ways.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: But one more, it's a lot. It's a lot, right, Like,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: and I think again you can be overwhelmed by that,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: like this fight's never going to be over, and that
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: we continue to like have to you know, push back
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: against these things. It seems like they come in cycles.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: You know. I think you talked about, you know, the
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Arctic has been a political football for the last twenty years.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I think the sale of public lands seems
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: to come up every eight to ten years, you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: and and so these things come back. But it's also,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: like I will say what I said before, like it's
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: so rad that we're still doing stuff that like Theodore
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Roosevelt was fighting for that, alder Leopold was fighting for that,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Rachel Carson was fighting for you know. I mean I
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: think that, like it's kind of cool to be a
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: part of that whole thing. You talk about that bill
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and one more, you know, there's a lot of stuff
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: in there, but there's another piece in there that takes
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: you know, infrastructure money away from the National parks. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: so the National Park System got some money to work
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: on infrastructure. You know, I saw an article a couple
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: of days ago that in June they had the highest
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: visitation in Yellowstone and Glacier than they've had ever, you know,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: which has been happening for the last decade. And so
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: you had you know, I think it was like three
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty to four hundred million dollars that they
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: took out, you know, for for actual maintenance and like
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: infrastructure for our parks. And I'm like, you know, here's
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: this amazing renewable resource. You know that people are going
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: to go there because like, this is what they want,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: this is where they want to recreate. You've seen all
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: this data. It contributes to this one point two trillion
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: dollars of economic output, which is the entire outdoor you
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: know economy. Why are you taking away from the very
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: things that care and feed. That doesn't sound it doesn't
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: sound very like fiscally responsible. I would say to to really,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: you know, take away the resources from the very things there.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: You know, if you care and feed, not only can
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: we maintain that one point two chillion, but we can
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: also grow that. So that is one that I'll call
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: out every single time just because like I think it's ridiculous.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, On the I love the idea
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: of being fasically conservative and making sure we're not breaking
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the bank for our kids, but it's hard to make
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: that argument to use that as your defense for, you know,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: trying to sell off our public lands or trying to
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: pull back funding from our land management agencies or anything
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: like that. In one hand, but then on the other,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: in this same bill, you reduce royalty rates on the
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: gas and oil companies that are extracting oil from our
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: public lands. So I don't think people realize this that
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: there's this whole thing that saying, hey, we're trying to
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: be more basically conservative, but this bill reduced the dollars
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: the oil and gas companies pay back to the government
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: for taking oil and gas out of our public lands.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: So instead of like trying to make this stuff more profitable,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: we just made it less profitable. I have a hard
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: time spurring that one.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's uh. I mean, that's again like, don't don't
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: don't look at what we're saying, look at what we're doing, right,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I think we have to look at what they're doing.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: And in that case, these companies have been paying that
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: for decades and that's the cost of doing business. Like,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: it's not like oil and gas is doing horrible right now.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: They're having record profits, and so to me, that was
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: just you know, a nod in the to folks so
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: they can make more money, which you know that's gonna
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: be a select few. So it didn't. I mean, the
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: big beautiful bill was ugly in many ways.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: So here's another one, a big win that we had
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: back in I guess it was early twenty twenty, maybe
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: when it signed or late twenty nineteen. It's all blurred now,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: but the Great American Outdoors Act was a great win
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: for us as the honey and fishing and outdoor community.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: That was signed into law by the Trump administration, and
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: they have celebrated that and rightfully, so I'm really glad
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: they signed into law, and I'm glad that there were
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Republican Senators who helped push that across the finishing line.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. But now we're seeing some of those funds
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: pulled back. That authorized permanently authorized the Land and Water
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Conservation Fund, but I've been seeing those funds are being pulled. Now,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: can you can you fill me in and focus in
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit more on what's going on with the
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: land and Water Conservation Fund and some of those dollars.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Yep, sure, So I'd say things one, there was some
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: money that was in the actual Big Beautiful Bill. It
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: was two hundred million dollars if I'm correct, That was
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: for a portion of the Land of Water Conservation Fund
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: dollars it was going to originally get pulled out that
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: got put back in. So we missed, we dodged a
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: bullet on that. There airs a budget that's proposed by
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: the Presence. This is separate from the Big Beautiful Bill.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: This will be a budget that will be implemented in
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. But it takes four hundred million dollars
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: from Land of Water Conservation Fund away in that bill
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: and puts it back to the General Treasury, which I
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: want us to like rewind history just a little bit.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Is that when President Trump was president first go around,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: he had a budget which totally completely zeroed out the
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Land of Water Conservation Fund. So it took it from
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: you know, its potential at nine hundred million dollars all
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: the way to zero. Then a couple months later, Senator
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Danes and Corey Gardner are running for reelection. You know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Danes is from Montana, Corey Gardner from Colorado. Both Republicans
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: came to him and said, man, the Land of Water
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Conservation Fund is so important to our constitutions. We need
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: to get something done that permently authorizes, you know, this
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: fund at nine hundred million dollars a year. The President's like,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I think his words were sweet, get me something on
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: my desk and I'll sign it. Well, that's when all
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: the work out put into describes as it was, awesome bill,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: great American outdoors. Actly, I only did it have a
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: land of Water Conservation Fund in there, but like twelve
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: billion dollars for you know, maintenance on our national parks,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: national force. Amazing sign into law. We all celebrate, which
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: we should, as you described, like I remember like making
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: a ton of phone calls. We had centered Danes on
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: a zoom call when I was back at back up
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: to under Nador. Is amazing. That's fast forward. Second administration.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: The first time he gets to you know, put a
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: budget forward and here's this bill that he just signed
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: into law, and I wants to cut it by four
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: hundred million dollars, right and so almost in half. And
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: to me, man, that's just like that's straight political talk.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Is what we just saw, Like what happens in politics
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: is that you they say what you want to hear.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Actually something happens because it was politically salient. But then
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: the original intent of gutting that pro is now there.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: And so the good news is is that's just a
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: proposal by the president. Right, So the president gets a
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: budget proposal together. Now only did he gout you know,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: landwater controvational phone, but he gutted our you know, our
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: public land management agencies in a huge way as far
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: as how they're going to manage. But that goes to Congress.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Then Congress is like, thanks for that. Now we're going
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: to do our own thing. And we're seeing obviously the
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: president has a lot of influence over this Congress in particular,
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: but the Congress starts over and they basically do their
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: own thing with the idea of thinking about the president's
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: budget because ultimately he has to sign it. So we
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: have a lot of time with LWCF, I would say
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: to push back against this ill fated idea. And you know,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: since it's been used in every single county in America,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: you know, and every single elected official has some project
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: in their district that I feel, you know, okay, but
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: it's going to be one that the people are going
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: to have to step up on really quick.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Just in case someone doesn't know what the LWCF is,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: can you give us the thirty second cliff notes.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Sir Water Conservation Fund, established in nineteen sixty four, takes
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: money from offshore oil development in the Gulf of Mexico
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: puts it back towards conservation access. And like I said,
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: every single county, if you've ever been to a swimming pool,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: a golf course, or a soccer field and a small
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: community in particular, that's probably paid for by the Land
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Water Conservation Fund. Any single time you've been on a
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: boat ramp or a river access site, that's usually paid
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: for by the Land Water Conservation Fund. And so not
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: only that was used for you know, big kind of
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: purchase conservation easements across this country, for wildlife corridors and
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: for sportsman's access. So it is like one of the
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: tools for access and conservation and just recreation in general
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: in this country. Yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Huge, Okay. So, so we've talked about the big beautiful
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: bill the past. What's still in it, what's not still
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: in it. We've talked about some of this budget stuff
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: a little bit. What's what's the next big thing you
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: think you can back to, like flood the zone. There's
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff going on. There's many different proposals
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: and potential legislation and administrative actions that will influence public lands, waters, wildlife.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: But what's the next big one that you want to
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: shine a light on that we should be aware of.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: So I talked about like the three d's right, So
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: in the first D would be defund and we'll talk
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: a little bit more about that in a second. Then
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: you talk about dismantle, and then all towards the idea
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: of divest and divest is just the fancy word for
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: sell it, you know off. And so let's talk about
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: the defund We've already talked about that already. Like this budget,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: just to put a finer point on it, is going
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: to be a major deal for a public lands management
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: agencies in twenty twenty six. They've already you know, taken
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: huge hits on staffing in particular, but they've been you know,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: underfunded for a couple of decades leading up to this already. Right,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: we haven't kept up with inflation, we haven't kept up
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: with like the you know, the amount of UH, I
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: would say, use these public LANs are getting, which continues
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: to go up I described earlier, and so that defund
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: and I think is huge. The next one, so we've
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: already talked about that. The next one I would talk
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: about is just just dismantling. And so Supreme Court just
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: ruled last week that it's okay for the Trump administration
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: to go around Congress and do reductions in force through
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the agencies. And so all the firing basically that happened
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: through DOGE has now kind of been said to the
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: advice the Supreme Court that was okay, and it opens
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: up the door to do it again. And so, you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I've got friends within the agency. I have, you know,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: retired folks that have folks that have just left calling me,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: and they're so nervous about what this next one's going
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: to look like, especially you know, as we're facing fire season.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: You know here in Montana it's not as bad yet
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: as as it probably could be, but it's starting and
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: and you know we've already gonna be working on a
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: really skeleton crew there. And so what happens I think
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: that's that's dismantling. And I say these two things. You
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: if you break it and somebody's got to fix it,
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: and how do you fix it. You privatize it, and
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: that's kind of like the game plan that we're seeing.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: So then you get to that, you know, that last
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: word divest and so those two we got to be
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: paying attention. And so how do we push back against that? Well,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I think first go around, when the national parks were
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: in such trouble, in particular, because national parks are you know,
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: again like celebrated probably as the crown jewel, you know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: of all of our public lands. When they were being
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: reduced in staff, people started pushing back, and that's an
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: administration said, well, we're going to hire back, you know,
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: some people temporarily, right. I think Doug Bergen came out
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and said that, and if they have not done yet,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: by the way, but that was because there was so
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: much pushback from the people. And I think to senators
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: in particular, you don't think the administrations THAT'SAI thely going
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: to listen, but when senators start calling them, they have
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: to listen to those senators for two reasons. One because
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: they're senators and they're one of the checks and balances
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: on the administration. But two, they have to be elected.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: In order for the administration to get done what they
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: want to do, they have to have, you know, a
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: party and leadership. So push back against the defunding, pushed
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: back against this next riff or reduction in force. I
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: guess that is what it's called when it happens, because
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I think that and even preemptively doing that right now
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: with your senators and you know, other elected leaders I
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: think will help push back against. But those are two
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: that I'm pretty nervous about.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna say. You know, there's kind of like
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: an in between between the dismantle and divest, which is
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: decry right where it's they defund they dismantle, and then
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: they call foul on our public land management, and they say, see,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: the federal government should be should not be managing these lands.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: The federal government shouldn't have these places, because look at
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: what a lousy job they're doing managing your force. Look
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: at what a lowsy job they're doing dealing with traffic
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: in the national parks. Look at what a lousy job
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: they're doing on a B or C. All the while
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the Congress is the ones who are controlling the purse strings.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Who are making it nearly impossible for these agencies to
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: do their job. So it's it's wild, it's a it's
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: an incredibly effective strategy probably, and it's it's a shame
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: that they can get away with this, because yes, they
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: are basically creating these circumstances themselves that allow themselves to
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: tell the story that gives them rationale to say transfer it,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: sell it, get rid of it, or let us just
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: like you know, extract as much resources as we could
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: off of it because you know, the A, B and
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: C isn't working. So it's it's, uh, I don't know this.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: This sounds hyperbolic maybe, but it's kind of malevolent, like
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's a pretty uh I'm not I'm sure
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: there's plenty of people who aren't, you know, in on
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: some kind of like deep dark plan to get rid
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: of our public lands. But there's a few people probably
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: there like, hey, this is how we're going to do it.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: There's think tanks that have been writing about how to
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: do this for years, for decades, and some of the
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: people have positions of power influence. Now, so's it's not
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: something you know, I don't care if you are a
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Republican or a Democrat or somewhere in between. If you
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: use these places to go on your elcons or your
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: deer hunts or trout fishing trips or whatever, this is
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: stuff that matters that we got to step outside of
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: our teams and just say, hey, this isn't the place
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: to be messing around.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: You're totally right, and I do. I think it is systematic, right,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: And I think that if you think about Project twenty
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: five or I don't know if you've seen Homesteading two
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: point zero, but it's all this is all about divesting
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: public lands. These are people written by like, you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: William Perry Penley, who was Director of Bureau Plant Management
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: in the last Trump administration. Like, these are things that
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: have been talked about for a long time and I've
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: said it, you know, Center Mike Lee is not going anywhere,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: and this affordable housing is just the latest kind of
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: piece like that he's talking about. But what he really
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: is going to be talking about soon is going to
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: be this, oh they're broken, let's, you know, you know,
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: solve them and privatize them. So no, you're totally right.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to start using that word to cry.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: I like it well done.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: So of the you know, as we've been talking about,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: there's been all of this noise, all these different things
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: kind of clouding the waters, and this public land sale
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: definitely did that in a big way. We've been talking
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: about the kind of the defund divast or the defund, dismantle,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: divest and and that kind of trajectory of things. But
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: you know, outside of that, or maybe expanding on that,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: what are some of like the other, if any any
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: other specific actions that you expect we need to be
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: you know, starting to get educated on or start moving on,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: because this funding stuff is kind of it's kind of
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: high level, it's kind of I don't I don't know
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: how to quite put the words to it. But when
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: we hear about funding, there's all these different budgets, as
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, there's the budget from the President and the
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Congress puts together their budget, and there's all these many,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: many move in parts. It's less tangible, I guess than
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: what I'm getting at the firings seem somewhat tangible, but
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: again maybe a little bit outside of I can't quite
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: draw a circle around who talked to for every one
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: of these issues or how to address every one of
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: these issues. Are there any other more tangible specific threats
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: outside of that that we can keep tabs on? I mean,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: you mentioned bounder waters earlier. That's probably one because that's
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: back on the table in a different kind of way.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: But are there any other specifics you want to make
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: sure we cover here?
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's a good question. I mean I think
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: you know, within the budget, it's sure it gets like
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: it's it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly, and it kind
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: of feels like I think you were searching for a word.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's like like it's not tangible, right, Like it's
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: hard to like put your arms around it. That said,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: you know, there's also you know, there's pushes within the
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: budget to let's say, take away kind of the bird
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: banding program in this country, right, bird banding, especially on
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: waterfowls one of the ways that we count waterfowl, one
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: of the ways we see what kind of hunter take
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: is on waterfowl. And so that program goes away, it's
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: going to be a lot harder to count ducks and
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: a lot harder to set seasons on ducks. And so
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: I think as this budget kind of rolls out, I
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: think they'll be individual things that we can all point
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: to that are much more specific and tangible versus just
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: like kind of these large numbers and what does that
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: mean to these agencies? Right So, I think point that's
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: something to look at when you talk about boundary waters.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: You know, you got Congressman Stauber's bill in the House
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: that's like basically, let's open it up and let's just
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: get this copper mind, you know done. Then you have
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Senator Tina Smith's bill that's like, no, hold on, like
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: this is a special place, let's not you know, you know,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: put a comprom sulfied mind, put a mile south. And
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: so those two are competing, they're in different chambers, one
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: to say hell no to and the other one to
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: say hell yes too. So I think those are some things.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: I think we'll find more things like that. Like I
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: know that they're starting to be talk about what we're
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: going to study areas in particular. There's some conversations going
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: on around road those lands right now as well, And
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: so I think there'll be specific areas. You know, you
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: talked about the Ambler Road, Like we're not done with
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: that one either, you know. We let's talk about like
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: the Eisenbeck National Wildlife Refuge, which is up in Alaska too,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: which is amazing place that they want to put a
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: road right to the middle of that. And that's actually
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: the portion they want to put it through is wilderness,
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: and so you do it there, you can kind of
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: do it anywhere. There's another kind of one of those ideas,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: and so I think we'll have specific places, you know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: there'll be some positive things in like that too. You know,
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: there's been a bill that's been floating around for a
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: long time here in Montana called the Blackfoot Clearwater Conservation
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Act that's basically been working with loggers and with snowmobilers,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: with hikers, with hunters to come up with what the
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: landscape looks like and some places you're going to have,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: you know, more timber development, which wasn't been a part
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: of this build but that's been in other bills. But
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: that's why the timber companies still support it. But it'll
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: be like new wilderness here in Montana, which would be
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: absolutely awesome and hasn't happened in decades. And I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: now having Senator Tester gone, there's much more of an
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: opportunity probably for this to happen. Even though he was
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: a champion. I think that there was others in this
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: state that didn't want him to get a win, and
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: so they were not supportive of that bill. But I
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: think these answer to your question is more directly, I
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: think there's gonna be these individual opportunities to get involved
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: in individual landscapes, which you know, in those landscapes will
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: mean something to those people on the ground, but obviously
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: some of these bigger places to all of us across
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: the country.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also I think, kind of piggybacking off of that,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: what I'm starting to learn is that even if I
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: am never going to go to one of these places,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: or if I've yet to go to one of these places,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: or if they are far from home, they oftentimes still
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: have like trickle down effects on the places that I
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: do visit or places that are close to my home,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: because they set a precedent. Like you said, like, hey,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: if we can if this reconciliation package can force through
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: drilling in a wildlife refuge it was created originally specifically
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: for wildlife and to preserve this area. If that place
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: can get opened up despite public opposition, that opens up
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: the door for many more of these things to happen.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Through a similar process, or whether it be the boundary
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: waters issue or Ambler road or things going on in
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: the Everglades, whatever it is. I think something I'm starting
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: to see is that every one of these things is
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: like a home waters or home land kind of issue,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: because it will eventually impact me or you or us
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: in one way or another. And so at least I'm
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: finding that more and more. I'm trying to be educated
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: and doing something for as many of these things as
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I can. It's same with the hunting rights. I mean,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: we've talked about this in the past too, like if
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: we lose the right to hunt mountain lions in Colorado,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: all that very well could impact you in Montana, or
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: me and Idaho or wherever down the line. So it's
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I think the tiny silos that we used to live in,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: like I'm a Michigan or I'm an Idaho and or
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: I'm a white tail hunter or whatever. I think, by
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: necessity we might need to start increasing the sphere of
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: of what we focus on and what we try to
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: help out on. Like I'm going to chip in on
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: this one today, even though it might not directly impact
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: me tomorrow, because the next day or the next day,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: it's going to be me, and I sure hope that
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: someone in Florida, or someone in Alaska or someone in
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: you know, Washington will also chip in on that issue too.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Does that is that something that you've thought all about?
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, it totally resonates with me, Mark, and I
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: think that you know, we're all in this together, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: we just showed what happens when we can all work together,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: what kind of collective power we have. And so I
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: think that precedent setting is one that is super important
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: that we need to pay attention to that you know,
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: it can happen over there, it could happen in my backyard.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: I think another piece is that clean air and clean
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: water belongs to us. And like you know, wh I
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: think about clean water in particular, seventy percent of our
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: clean water starts on our public lands, and so that
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: clean water whether you and you probably live in Arizona,
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: it's probably even more important to you than maybe up
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: in uh, you know, in Minnesota. But they're all connected
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: at some level, right, and this water belongs to us all.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: So I think there's that piece. And then I think,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: you know, for those that don't, you know, like like
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: think about that piece, like there's that tillion dollar one
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: point two trillion dollar economic you know driver that's in
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: this country. That should be something that we as all
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: Americans should care about, right, that we have something that
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: you know, contributes significant amounts of the economy, especially in
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: rural America, especially in rural America, I think we should
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: maintain that. And then the last one I guess is
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: like why we should care about this stuff, man, is
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: that I don't know about you, but when I've faced
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: adversity in the woods, like I've learned something from it
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: every single time. And sometimes you know that means like
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: pack up and get the heck out of there, because
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: that's the only probably decision. There are times you face
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: that adversity and then you know, helps you with other things.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: And so they have places where my kids can go
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: face adversity and learn from that, you know, like my
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: daughter in particular, as she goes off to school next year,
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Like these are why we should be paying attention to this,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: whether it is you know, in your backyard or not,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: is because these places can provide all those things that
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: we just talked about and some and if we take
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: them away, they're never going to function the same way again, right,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: They never will function the same way again, so they
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: matter to us all.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, so we really need to focus on this
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: budget and staffing and management of our public lands now.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Moving forward, there's going to be some specific location focused
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: attacks that we need to be focusing on. There's been
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of these kind of rule or regulation rollbacks
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: that impact our public lands and waters, things like the
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: road this rule being rescinded, et cetera. Long story short,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: there's going to be more action needed.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Our work is not done. The land sale pushback that
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: we all contributed to, that was just the beginning. You
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: have been involved in a lot of different campaigns over
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: the years, whether it be prior to BHA or your
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: time a top back hunter Hunters and Anglers or now
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: with AHA American Hunters and Anglers. You've seen what doesn't work,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: You've seen what does work as far as building grassroots
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: opposition or support for these various things. Can you talk
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: to me about some of the major takeaways you've had
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: as far as what we as individuals can do or
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: as members of an organization to move the needle on
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: some of these issues that are already coming down the line,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: and that inevitably will what are some of the big
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: like you, what's what's your theory of change land? What
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: are the individual actions and largerly collective actions that really
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: can help us moving forward when we when we're gonna
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: need to do something.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: Huge question and thank you for this. I mean I'd
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: be a little flip it and stay. First of all,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: he's like, stop bitching and start a revolution, right Like,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: I think there's like a lot of this armchair quarterbacks
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: that are sitting around and are like, oh, I don't
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: like this and I don't like that, and they don't
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: ever do anything about it, right Like, You've got to
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: get off the couch and do something about it. And
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: so I think action taking is always again, we're going
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: to lose some of these fights, but if you are
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: not taking action, you are definitely going to lose, and
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: you're not going to learn anything from being engaged in
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: that fight either. And so I think that is like
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: the fundamental one that I've probably learned over my twenty
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: five years. It's just takes some action, right Like, it
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: doesn't really matter exactly what that action is, but take
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: an individual action. Part of that I think is really
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: in the community building piece is talking to your friend circle,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: you know, like we all have friends that go for
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: many different walks of life, and there are friends for
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: many different reasons, right Like they may be you know,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: we may sit around on the soccer sidelines with them
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: because our kids are playing, or we may you know,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: you know, actually hunt together. I mean, crazy thing that
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: some of us still hunt together. Right But I think
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: that like all the people that you know and that
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: are in your sphere, the more that we're talking to
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: them about these issues how much they matter to us,
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: and then asking them questions on you know, like you know,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: what do these places mean to you? Like that overall,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I think question is really important. And part of what
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: you're doing there is you're telling your own story and
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: so that theory of change, like continue to tell your
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: own story online in particular, it's this great venue to
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, go out to your favorite you know,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: phishing access site and talk about how this was put
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: to there by the Land of Water Conservation Fund. Right Like,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: I think there's ways for you to for everybody to
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: tell that story and so that it becomes you know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: Land of Water Conservation Fund. Nobody used to really know
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: what it was. And I was glad that you had
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: me explain it today because sometimes I you know, I'm
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: talking to people and they know exactly what it is
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: now because we've been educating for over a decade, but
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: there's still people that don't know that. And so the
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: more that we tell that story, I think the better.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, my theory of change, one of
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: the things that I think really works is that we
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: got to stop just trying to like be nice all
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: the time and and and not hold people accountable. And
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: I think accountability it can be thanks as well, but
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: it definitely has to be spanks. And I think that
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: ultimately that elected leaders in particular, they got to feel
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: some heat. And when they feel some heat and that
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: stove gets hot, then they back off and they try
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: to figure out how to get out of that corner
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: that we put him in. And Mike Lee, I think
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: is a different cat. I think he's a totally different cat.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: Let's not let's put him in a different box. But
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people that he's trying to
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: convince to get on his team are still very much clay,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: and that we by pushing back against them, we're letting
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: them know that we want them to do things in
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: a certain way that they will listen to the people.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: And then when somebody does do something bad, we got
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: to hold them accountable, and I think spank them publicly
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: in particular. It's really the only kind of like backstop
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: that we have. And that is like when I say
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: theory of change, and I won't name names unless you
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: want me to, but I've worked with a lot of
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: different politicians that have only done the right thing once
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: they've gotten spanked. Then once they do the right thing,
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: then you celebrate them, you know, like they're the best
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: champions in the world. But also don't say that's the
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: last thing that we're ever going to say to you, right,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Like it's this constant kind of training. I would say
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: that you have to do with elected officials, and I
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: think that negative piece it's hard to do sometimes and sometimes,
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe even the world that we're living in,
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: it feels like that's too much of the noise. So
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: you have to do it in a tackful way. But
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: I think holding our elected leaders, you know, accountable, is
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: a great way to create change and long lasting change too.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And then I think, you know, the last thing is
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: like catching them when they're good. So again I'm talking
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: about the spank kind of piece. But when they're doing
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: something good, I think, really, you know, it's like when
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: you're training a dog, they probably learn more from the
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: treats that you give them than the shot caller that
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: you give them, right, and and so when they do
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: do something good, I think applauding them, but also letting
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: them know that like this is not like with your dog.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: You don't you know, just get to get that one
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: treat and then you're done being a good dog. You know,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: you got to behave that way so you can get
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: those treets going forward. So that theory of change, I
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: think I would say those things, and then I you know,
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: besides that, the storytelling that has to happen from podcasts
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: like this, from national leaders, I think just it continues
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: to have to happen, and so that this power that
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: we all just realize can be maintained and that we're
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: ready for that next fight. And then I think we
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: can think about things that are proactive as well. But
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: right now we're in a pretty big defensive lope.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So imagine a world land where we didn't have
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: this pendulum swing. Imagine a world where it wasn't like, oh,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: all right, stuff's going all right, and then ah no,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: now we're crazy on defense, and then okay, now it's
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: a little better in this front and then all announce
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: on defense, or you know, as a hunter, my pendulum
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: is like okay. Sometimes like oh shoot, everyone's trying to
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: take hunting rights, everyone's trying to take away firearm rights,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: et cetera. And then then you get a new administration,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh geez, they're trying to take away public lands.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Oh gis they're rolling back every protection on our wildlife
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: or wild places, and there's this pendulum goes back and forth.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: It's like whiplash. How do we ever change that? Land's
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: the what's the roadmap to someday getting to a point
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: where it's like, all right, everyone is working to protect
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: these things in one way or another. They've got different solutions,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: different ideas, but at least we're a little bit in
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: closer alliance on folks on both sides of the aisle
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: standing up for public lands, or folks on both sides
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: of the aisle, you know, advocating for some some relatively
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: long term sustainable solutions to keep our wildlife and wild
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: places around how do we get their land?
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: In your view, we demand it, We demand it, the
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: people demand it. And I think that you know, this
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: last public lands fight is a great example, is that
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Center Mike Lee thought this all this pushback was like
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: manufactured by the left. Like you know, he really was
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: out there. He was tweeting like making a question of money,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: yeah exactly, And I was like, I was like, you
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: are not reading the room, man, Like it is across
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: the entire spectrum. And so then we demanded it, and
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: ultimately he had to listen. Now, there was phone calls
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: being made to people about backing off of like you know,
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: their soapboxes and like trying to be quieter about this stuff.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: And you know those people said, oh, you want me
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: to be quieter, and then they leaned in even heavier, right,
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: And so I think this we have to demand it
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: and we have to like I think we have to
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: like really try to have to find this like common
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: ground from the very beginning, right, like here's this public land,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: these public wildlife that are unique in this country that
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: we all care about for the majority, right, like this
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: is one thing that we can call less around, which
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: we just showed. Can we start building like that base
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: then that allows us so depends on doesn't do this,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: it just does little teeny ones right in between, because
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: there's gonna be different ideas about management how much money
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: we should be spending this part of the budget or another.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: But as long as those things aren't way over here,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: that's on all three of the things you just talked about, right,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: And so you know when Senator Tester you know, and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Senat Heinrich both in the Senate together, like where is
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: like the push from Democrats to help help them, especially
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: with gun right stuff right like and help help the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: other Democrats realize that that's like an issue that once
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: goes way too far one way right, there can be
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: a conversation potentially more in that middle or the same
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: thing with like you know, hunter rights, like like how
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: do we have these conversations more in here then the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: way over here and over here? Now it's we the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: people demand it, and like that's how we build you know,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: there's relationships that hopefully many of us as hunters, I've
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: been trying to build them for twenty five years, but
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: hopefully more felt that this last go around. But it's
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: during this public lands fight when you're talking to other
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: public lands users. What a great opportunity that was to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: like not talk about you know, like, man, you scare
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: the Elko way with those mountain bikes, you know, when
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: you're in a certain area at this certain time of year.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: It was like, No, we're talking about the fundamental thing
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: that we all care about. We built relationships, and so
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: if we continue to build relationships with people that don't
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: necessarily recreate the same way that we do, or don't
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: look the way that we do, or don't vote the
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: same way we do, and then collectively do we demand it. Yeah,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: we can get in who we want.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you mentioned earlier about you know, demanding things,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: holding people accountable, not mincing We didn't say this, but
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I think something you were speaking too is like not
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: mincing words. Sometimes. I've seen like a couple of different
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: approaches to like advocacy organizations. There's there's one arm of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: our conservation world that is like we're gonna fly the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: red flag, we're gonna send the red alarm, we're gonna
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: call a space a spade and call you out and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: X Y Z. And then there's another arm which is like, hey,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: we need to maintain communication channels with whoever's there, no
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: matter what their policy is or no matter what administration
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: they're in, because we're going to try to get some
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: moderate things done and maintain communication. So because of that,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: we're going to be very conservative about, you know, how
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: we say things, or conservative about calling folks out because
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: we don't want to damage those communication channels or possible
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: potential collaboration. And I personally can see the value in both.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I would say that it seems like your new organization,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: American Hunters and Anglers, as you just mentioned, takes more
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: of the hey, we're going to call it out kind
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: of approach. Can you can you just expand a little
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: bit more on what your approaches with this organization in particular,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: So what are you guys doing, how are you going
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: to do things? What makes your organization now different than
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: BHA or things you've been a part of in the past,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And and and then finally how can people learn more
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: engage anything with what you guys are doing?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: Great? So I would like to start with that the analogy, right,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: like we're all going down this this river together, right,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: we have this destination in mind which is carried on
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: this culturvation legacy that was gifted to us. Within that river,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: there's many different boats that have different rolls like on
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: that river, right, and so you know, some are gonna
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: be utilized for, like you say, to kind of like
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: maintain relationships, have these conversations behind closed doors. Others are
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: going to make some noise on the outside. And that's
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: really what American Hunters and Anglers are trying to do.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: Said another way, we're going to break some eggs, and
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: so others can make some omeless right, And so I
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: think that sometimes that you know, there's things that need
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: to be said, calling it like we see it, and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: so that others can have those conversations behind those closed
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: doors and be like, man, that created quite a bit
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: of noise for you on the outside. Now, let's help
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: you get out of that corner. And so American Hunters
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: and Anglers we don't we're we're five on one C
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: four which a little bit nerdy, but you know, BHA
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: try to unlimited TIERCP majority of critter organizations or sports
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: organized or five on one C threes. That's their designation
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: as in the irs. Within that they can only lobby
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: twenty percent of the time, which means they can only
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: you know, report about what's going on and call you
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: the action. That doesn't even mean about you know, individuals
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: out in Washington, DC calling the people to action twenty
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: percent of their time. So if you have a million bucks,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: that's two hundred thousand dollars. So they're limited there, and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: they also can't get involved in elections, and that's you know,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: that's like, that's a hard hard line for nonprofits and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: a C three status CE four unlimited lobbying, which again
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: like I'm not going out to d C and punting
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: the doors every single day. I'm not a registered lobbyist.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: But what we can do in American hundred anglers is
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: we can report the news on what's going on and
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: then call people to action every single day without worry
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: about getting up against that cap. Second piece of that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: is so we can't get involved in elections and demand
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: from our elected leaders when they're most vulnerable. I would
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: say to the most spongeable vulnerable might be the wrong
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: way to say it. They're the most spongeable and trying
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: to like get them in a place where they commit
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: to one thing or another right and that's on the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: campaign trail. And so that's really what we're going to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: be doing We do that you know, on media, so
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: social media, we're super heavy on social media, but we're
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: also doing that with traditional media. So that's like stuff
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: in print I would say New York Times, Washington Post,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: National Public Radio, that kind of stuff traditional press releases.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: But like we are, we're not we're not gonna be
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: a membership organization. We're not going to be a corporate
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: partner organization. We're not going to be you know, necessarily
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: of volunteers. All across the country. People want to volunteer.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: They can you know, cut videos for us and like
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: we can help get those you know up online, or
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: we can you know, help them and get engaged and
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: volunteer their time by calling, sending an email, or going
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: on social media and addressing people. So American Hunters and
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: Anglers in short, we're here to like let people know
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: what's going on. When there is some bad actors, we're
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: gonna punish them and so that others can kind of
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: have those conversations about how they figure out, you know,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: a policy it's a little bit different than what they
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: put forward in the first place.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love that analogy. That makes a lot
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: of sense. There's a lot of different roles to play,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: and I can see the need for you know, the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: behind the doors, the in front of the doors, the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: eggs and the omelets and and everything in between. Whatever
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: it takes to to get a couple of these battles
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: one and pointing things in the right direction, I think
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: is his his good news as far as I'm concerned. So, Land,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: when you get up in the morning and you're trying
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: to rally the energy for the day or for the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: work week or whatever it is, what are you What
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: are you thinking about? What keeps you coming back to
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: this set of issues, what keeps coming, what keeps you
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: coming back to this cause? And finally, what would you
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: offer to folks as we send people off today as
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: they consider kind of taking up the same cause and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: getting engaged themselves.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: So it probably depends on the day. This morning, I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: woke up remembering our day that we had yesterday. So
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: we had this day yesterday down the Bitterroot, on the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Bitterroot National Forests. We went down there to pick huckleberries.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: And the amount of people that were out on a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: Sunday picking huggle berries, and I'm talking like three year
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: olds to like ninety year olds been built around these
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: little tiny bushes picking up these little purple like berries.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: We call them purple gold, and they're out right now,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: and you know, the kids are eating them. They're hardly
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: you know, putting any in the bucket to have later
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: with ice cream or you know, I cooked some for
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: my kids this morning on pancakes. But like seeing that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: and seeing the like the people that were out there,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: and nobody's like that's a Democrat, that's a Republican or
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: you know, like you know, like how much money do
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: you have in your bank account? Like like everybody's on the
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: same playing field, because you got to find the berries
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: and then you got to pick them, like there's no
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: way o there to get them, right. So I think
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: that I was reminded that this morning. And then yesterday
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: we also found this like tributary to this creek that
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: we were on that has like this natural like water
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: slide on it, and and so it's like these slate
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: rocks that have been turned on their sides. The water
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: goes over the top of them, and you gotta be
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: a little bit careful, but you know, this time of year,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: the water's not so high, and so you can get
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: on those and watching my kids watching this exchange student
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: that we have from Spain right now, the pure joy
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: that they have like going down this slide and like
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: and so when I woke up this morning, I mean,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: I I you know, I think it's Edward Abway's quote.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: It's like, you know, be a part time advocate, you
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: got to get out there and touch and feel it, right. Yeah,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: well I went out and touch and feel it yesterday.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: And oh my god, am I having fired up about
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: like just making sure that my kids, that your kids
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: have something to fight for, right like all our jobs are.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: It's like I think it's you know, Doug d Doug
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: Durran kind of it's our time kind of right like
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: we're here right now, Like what are we going to
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: do about it? And so that's what fires me up.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: And then I think for anybody you know that's listening
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: to this that is a little nervous about gaining engaged,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: I get it, Like I get it. Sometimes it's scary,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: but hopefully listening to this podcast and watching others take action,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: that's all it is is about taking action, whatever that is,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: you know. And I think that you can do that
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: again by picking up the phone, sending an email, doing
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: your own social posts. There's a woman that created these
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: bumper stickers that were super rad. I saw somebody that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: did a remake of this land is Your Land the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: other day. You know, I think there's like whatever talent
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: that you bring, maybe you're like a CPA and you
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: think I don't really you know, know what to do
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: about conservation. I guarantee you that every single volunteer conservation
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: organization in this country is looking for a CPA to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: help them with the posts right now and make them
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: straight on their books. And so there's different talents that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: you can bring. It doesn't have to be, you know,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: just this forward facing, you know, hard hitting conservation stuff.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: So I would lead people with that is like take
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: individual action and know that nothing is ever given to
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: in this in this country, which is pretty awesome in
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways. We have to go get it
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: ourselves and we have to earn it. And I think
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: that's the very position we're in right now, the best
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: position we've always been in, and the only reason we're
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: having this conversation having right now is because of those
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: people that became before us.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, man, right on land, Well, I will speak
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: for many, many, many folks out there who would tell
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: you thank you for everything you've done over the years
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: in these many different iterations of our fights for public
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: lands and waters and wildlife. You've been a staunch advocate
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: for a long time, and I appreciate everything you've done
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: in the past. I appreciate what you're working on right
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: now and what I'm sure is yet to come. And
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: let's have another one of these chats down the line
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: on the Smith River and let's have some good news
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: to talk about. How about that?
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: I love it. I love it, and Mark, thank you
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: for the accolades. But I would be remiss not to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: push that right back on you, and I think your
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: voice and the way you're using it, thank you for
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: continuing to be an advocate for all things wild in particular,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: but the wild, public lands, public waters, and public wild
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: affe in this country because there's no other place like
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: on the planet. And you're using your venue, your I guess,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: your fully pulpit to use the Roosevelt Squares in such
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: a great way. So thank you. Thank you as well.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: Last thing website you are where can folks go to
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: learn more about AHA and what you got going on.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: So love this website. No landgrab dot com. Pretty easy
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: to remember. And then on the Insta it's just America
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: Hunters Anglers No, and in there you can find us
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: on the Instagram, so we'll update every single day on Instagram.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: Then you can sign up for our newsletter Slash just
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: that kind of information on our website. Perfect No land
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: grab dot com.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Can't forget that one. All right, let's talk against.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: It, all right? Sounds good, Mark, Thank you, all right.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you all for joining me. I hope you learned
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: something today. I hope you were inspired to continue taking action,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: and I hope you will join me in the You know,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: as land said, this this battle that will never quite
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: end as we continue to stand up for our wild places,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: our wildlife, our rights and opportunities to hunt and fish,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: our public lands, waters, and so much more.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: Until next time, thank you, and stay wired to hunt,