America's public lands backcountry is a foundation for our clean water, abundant wildlife, functioning ecosystems, and rich outdoor heritage. But that public birthright is under siege by a growing population, poorly regulated off-highway vehicles and a high demand for natural resources. Many conservation groups work to protect that heritage, but Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) uniquely focuses on protecting wilderness and other big natural areas on public land as grassroots hunters and anglers who use, know and love those lands.
BHA reflects the land ethic of Aldo Leopold, the father of modern wildlife management and one of the founders of the modern wilderness movement, giving voice to potentially tens of thousands of conservation-minded hunters and anglers — a voice critically important to conservation success in many communities, particularly in the rural West.
Hunters and anglers have long been strong advocates for habitat preservation. Early outdoorsman such as John Audubon and Theodore Roosevelt inspired a sportsmen's conservation movement that protected wilderness and wildlife across the nation. Despite these roots, modern wilderness preservation is too often framed incorrectly as anti-hunting and fishing. This poses significant threat to the conservation of America's most valued wild places.
Thousands of American hunters and anglers support wilderness designation, and now there is an organization to give these sportsmen and sportswomen a powerful voice to protect America's wild lands. Years of polling and decades of fieldwork show clearly that, when it comes to issues of public land, hunters and anglers enjoy unusually high credibility and clout with decision makers. This is especially true in the rural West, where many of the most important debates over public land take place.
While most of the 1200 BHA members hold strong conservation views, their backgrounds and affiliations mean they are influential beyond the environmental community. BHA is a uniquely positioned hunting and fishing organization with a narrow focus on protecting big, wild habitat. BHA is also unique because of its strong on-the-ground knowledge of wild public lands, coupled with high credibility among western-state decision-makers. Other sportsmen's initiatives have tackled issues such as countering oil and gas development on public lands, but BHA is focused narrowly on preserving, restoring and connecting wild-land habitats.
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers understands how to inspire hunters and anglers to protect our public lands. BHA has already contributed to campaigns that helped protect millions of acres of backcountry and wilderness in Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Oregon. Even without staff and on a small budget, BHA has already proven itself as an influential player in public lands debates. Wilderness veterans credit Backcountry Hunters & Anglers with offering key support for several successful wilderness campaigns, including:
- 250,000-acre North Coast Wilderness in California.
- 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness in the Washington Cascades.
- 550,000-acre White Pine County Wilderness in Nevada.
- 14,000-acre Copper-Salmon Wilderness and the 127,000-acre Mt. Hood Wilderness expansion in Oregon, among others.
- Withdrawal of 1.2 million acres of public lands from oil and gas development in the Wyoming Range through legislative action.
- Improving the Idaho Roadless Rule, including successfully upgrading over 250,000 acres in the Caribou-Targhee and Sawtooth National Forests and the 21,000-acre Rapid River Roadless area on the Nez Perce National Forest to a stronger level of protection.
- Banning off-highway vehicles from 90 percent of the 130,000 acre Badger-Two Medicine Drainage, along Montanan's Rocky Mountain Front in the Lewis & Clark National Forest.
- BHA is currently working to improve the Colorado Roadless Rule and is working to reinstate national roadless protections to 58.5 million acres of unroaded national forest lands.
In all, BHA has played a role in protecting nearly 10 million acres of wilderness and roadless backcountry since 2004. Clearly, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is an organization to watch and support as its power and influence continue to grow.
For more information, visit the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers website.
