Public Lands

Energy: Unfortunately, public lands in the West are under attack from several fronts. The ongoing energy boom in the West is exacting a toll on places dear to western sportsmen as industry, enabled by a federal energy policy that places drilling and development over protecting irreplaceable above-ground resources that have been the economic bread and butter for western communities for generations. We’re losing ground as more roads are constructed into important wildlife habitat, more well pads are graded for drilling rigs and more industrial traffic is stretching into the backcountry, where hunters chase deer and elk and anglers pursue wild and native trout in clear, untouched streams.

Off-road vehicles: Another frontal assault from slightly less subtle culprit is literally chewing up important hunting and fishing country—irresponsible off-road vehicle riders and their machines are encroaching on prime fish and game habitat, sullying perfectly healthy trout streams and driving big game to less trammeled areas. There is a place for responsible off-road vehicle use, but the unfortunate reality is sobering—given the opportunity, many riders will leave existing legal trails and pioneer new routes across the terrain. In the Rockies, these new “trails” become permanent scars on the land.

Mining: The third unfortunate attack on public lands is over a century old. In the West, more than 40 percent of all headwater streams are impacted, in one fashion or another, by abandoned mine runoff. Sadly, mining is still conducted on public lands today and governed by the archaic 1872 Mining Act, which gives the mining industry priority status among public land users, requires mining interests to pay nothing in royalties on the commodities they pull from the ground, and doesn’t do enough to require mining companies to clean up their messes, which are poisoning streams, driving big game away and impacting downstream water users. A bill approved by the House and about to be taken up by the Senate does much to remedy these problems.

Roadless: The best hunting and fishing habitat in the West is that land that, predictably, hasn’t been developed or trashed by human activity. Dubbed “roadless” land, these large backcountry parcels remain the best places for fishermen and hunters to visit in hopes of bagging a trophy bull elk or tangling with a wild and mean bull trout. Unfortunately, industrial development interests, off-road vehicle advocacy groups and others who don’t understand the intrinsic value of wild places left to their own devices wish to reduce the amount of protection given these lands under the 2001 Roadless Rule, which, while often challenged, remains in place pending future court decisions.