Ep. 870: The Public Land Grab Returns with Hal Herring

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the White Tail Woods presented by First Light, creating proven
versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
the show, I am joined by Hale Herring to discuss
the return of the public land grab movement and other
conservation related issues and threats that we're going to have
to keep an eye on heading into the new year.

(00:39):
All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
brought to you by First Light and their Camera for
Conservation initiative. And today we're continuing our series looking forward
into twenty twenty five and the new year, and the
focus today is public lands and conservation related issues. We
talked the big beginning of the year, kind of looking

(01:02):
back on twenty four and things that Tony and I
have learned as we look towards planning our next year
worth of projects. Last week, I think it was we
talked with Jake about planning and looking forward to a
new year of habitat improvements. Now today we're going to
go a little bit bigger picture, looking across the nation
at the issues that are going to potentially impact all

(01:22):
of us who enjoy hunting and fishing on wild public
places and also private land related places too. But today, unfortunately,
we need to kind of turn back the clock to
a set of issues that was talked a lot about
here on the podcast you know, five, six, seven, eight
years ago, and that being the land transfer movement, the

(01:46):
public land grab movement, folks trying to get rid of
our public lands, transfer them, sell them, degrade them, overutilize
them for things that are not conducive to hunting and
fishing and healthy wildlife populations and clean air and clean water.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
All that kind of good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
This is a set of topics that has to be
discussed again, and my guest today is someone who's perfectly
suited to do that. It's Hail Hearing. Hell is the
host of Backcountry and Hunters and Anglers podcast. He's also
a long time outdoor writer and journalist. He's covered the

(02:28):
conservation and environment related beats and kind of the intersection
of those topics with hunting and fishing. He's covered that
for decades, I believe, and he's actually now working on
a book exploring some of these topics, in particular the
history of our public land. So Hell is a wealth
of information and he's someone who has been tracking the

(02:48):
latest iteration of these public land threats. And I think
that's one of the key things that we need to
understand now, is that maybe for a minute, we felt
like we'd won the battle, we'd kind of stopped this
land transfer movement in its tracks. Back in eighteen nineteen twenty,
there was a decent bit of good news on the

(03:09):
public lands side of things, and over the last four
years there has been a lot more of that positive
changes when it comes to management of our public lands,
expanding public lands again, increasing protections on our public lands again.
But it appears that new forces are ascending. New leaders,

(03:30):
new influencers, new political think tanks and groups with different
goals and different aims now are in a position to
influence change for us in a not so good way.
And we've started to see the beginnings of that. And
one of those ways has been what Hell has described

(03:51):
as the slickest land grab attempt yet, which was this
lawsuit that the State of Utah recently filed back at
the end of twenty twenty for looking for the disposal,
asking the Supreme Court for the disposal of eighteen point
five million acres of public lands in Utah.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
And then in.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Another like thirteen fourteen, maybe fifteen other states signed on
in support of that lawsuit, states like Idaho, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska.
These states were in support of this. So this is
a new way. This is a new back door way
to try to get folks to get folks hands on

(04:32):
our public lands. And of course, as we've talked many times,
we got to keep public lands in public hands. So
our discussion today is going to be about what this
latest land grab attempt means and the good news on
that front, which is just a couple days ago the
lawsuit was struck down by the Supreme by the Supreme Court.
So we're going to discuss what this lawsuit was about,

(04:55):
why the Supreme Court shot it down, what that means
for the future, what a all of this might point
towards over the coming year or years, as far as
how the public land grab movement might be shifting. In
what we need to do as hunters and anglers and
outdoors people to make sure that we are ready for
this and ready for some new challenges coming down the

(05:17):
pipeline because it is now time to re engage. We're
going to discuss this. We're going to discuss why twenty
twenty five. In the next few years, we as a
hunting and fishing community are going to have to kind
of get on it again. Maybe we've been sitting back
on our laurels a bit recently, sitting pretty feeling comfortable.
No longer we need to rally. We need to stand

(05:38):
back up and get busy, because if we don't, we
are once again faced with the very real threat of
losing places we really care about. Places like the Boundary Waters,
places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, places like the
Tongus National Forest, places like the hundreds of millions of
acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management across the

(06:00):
American West. That's what we're discussing today. Hale is the
perfect guy to discuss it with. I will give a
one quick soft plug. If this whole land transfer movement thing,
if the history of how our public lands have been
traded and managed and now are under threat, if that's
kind of new to you, if you haven't been following

(06:20):
this story over the last decade with us here on
Wired Hunt, I gotta plug my book. You can see
it behind me if you're watching the video. It's called
That Wild Country and Epic Journey into the past, present,
and Future of America's Public Lands. That book was my
my attempt to try to get the average person up

(06:40):
to speed on what's going on and do it in
a fun, adventurous, compelling way. So there's a bunch of
stories about my adventures on public lands, hunting and fishing
and backpacking and rafting and doing all that kind of stuff.
And along the way, I'm going to get you all
up to speed on how we acquired six hundred and
forty million acres of federal public lands, how we is
America and have access to these things, and the crazy

(07:02):
story that led to that, as well as the debates
and controversies and concerning threats that we will be facing
here in the future to make sure we maintain that
access in these incredible places for us to go out
there and camp and hunt and fish and have a
hell of a time. So check out That Wild Country.
There are maybe autograph copies still on the media website.

(07:25):
If not, going over to Amazon pick up a copy
and lets.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
You do that.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Tune into the rest of this podcast with hal Herring.
It's a good one. It's an important one.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Thanks for being.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Here all right here with me now on the line
is mister Hale Herring.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
Hell thanks for really having me man man Mark.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, I always appreciate you making time to do this.
These are some of my favorite chats. And that's for
another reasons. One because you're just a wealth of information
and second because you are someone who from afar gives
me both hope and inspiration when it comes to the

(08:16):
future of our wild places, public lands, wildlife through your podcast,
through your words you have You've done that for a
lot of people. Hell, so I want to thank you
here at the outset for doing that.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
I appreciate that. It ain't really I wasn't really trying
to do that. That's how I feel. I've had it.
If it comes through, it's just it's just the way
I've lived it. Like my life has been so I've
been so lucky, raised my kids and my family with
the public lands and hunting and fishing Missouri River catfish

(08:54):
and I mean I just and all the way back
where I grew up in Alabama. It's like I've been lucky,
so my passion for all this is kind of borne
in and.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, it's hard to fake that when it's that deep
in your bones and your history.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
And same for me. It's uh, it's these things.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
They have given us so much, So much of our
lives have revolved around these places, these pursuits, these critters
you can't help but want to make sure they're still wrong.
I want to make sure that this this pumper can
keep on ticking right, you know.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
I feel like there's a there is kind of in
my case, I've been so lucky with it. If there
is a quid pro quo. Yeah, And then being a
reporter like Field and Stream, I got to deep dive
into like some of the things that can go wrong
and some of the things that have gone right.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
You know, and and and that's I guess why I
wanted to have you back on here again. I wish
we had good things that we maybe do have some
good things to talk about. But I think the major
impetus for giving you a ring again is the fact
that the boogeyman of six, seven, eight, nine years ago

(10:13):
that we were talking about with the public land transfer movement,
the divestment of public lands, the idea of selling or
transferring public lands that was getting really concerning in twenty fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Somewhere in that window, we're starting to see that starting
to rear its ugly head again. I think for a
minute there folks kind of felt like, all right, we've

(10:35):
got it tamped down. We got this thing as a
political poison pill. If you try to mess with our
public lands, it's going to be political suicide for you, right.
And in some of these recent years we felt pretty
good about things. But there have been some recent changes,
some recent attempts I think that are maybe forcing us

(10:56):
to open our eyes again to a new series of threats.
In this lawsuit coming out of Utah is maybe the
most glaring of those. And literally the day that we
started record, the day that we're recording this, some big
news has opened up on that front. Can you just
give us a quick rundown of what this latest attempt

(11:16):
to take our public lands was coming out of Utah,
why that was so concerning, and then what happened today?

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Sure, and we can all be thankful that we live
in a country with a you can argue with however
you want, but with a functioning Supreme Court of the
United States. You know, anyway, we can argue about its
composition and all that, but the court did rule. It's

(11:46):
not for me or for you. The court ruled on
the basis of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was the State
of Utah filed a lawsuit against the United States federal government,
our government claiming that and I'm not sure how they
picked eighteen point five million acres of BLM Bureau of

(12:09):
Land Management managed public lands in Utah had to be
gotten rid of, had to be disposed of. They claimed
that it was unconstitutional for the US government to maintain
control or management of those lands under the good okay,
because they were unappropriated. And to try to get that

(12:32):
short but make it understandable is like people, if you
know about the homestead Acts. Right, So the United States
government gave away, for a very small fee, starting in
eighteen sixty two, parcels little land to settle the West.
We had already given away huge amounts in the east, right,
but in the West was opening up after the Civil War,

(12:55):
and so those lands, they were unappropriated lands that were
given to homesteaders. The great piece of history. It's one
of the reasons the United States is the way it is.
You know, it was a Jeffersonian concept from the beginning.
You know a lot about it, Mark and I. But
I'm just trying to boil it down. But yeah, so Utah, nobody,

(13:19):
nobody wanted these desert rock lands in Utah at that time,
and so they remained a part of the federal lands.
And Utah is claiming that they are unappropriated and so
they have to be gotten rid of. Okay, So the
problem with that, there's a lot of problems with the lawsuit,

(13:40):
which the Supreme Court found quickly this morning, was that
these lands are appropriated. They are federal public lands managed
for multiple use for the American.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
People by the Bureau of Land Management.

Speaker 4 (13:55):
By the Bureau of Land Management. In this case, the
problem with the lawsuit was that if it had been successful,
thirteen other states signed on to this boondoggle. And that's
a problem of the American culture wars right now, I
can tell you because the state of Alabama signed on

(14:18):
to this, and I guess they figured it unappropriated. Bankhead
National Forest, where some of the greatest public land in
the Southeast was also they're going to get a hold
of that. I don't know what they're planning. What the
concept was. I think it was a culture war thing.
We're all against the federal government. We better prove that

(14:40):
by signing on to this nutball lawsuit.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, because by signing this amicus brief, as I understand it,
that was nothing more than kind of ceremonial, right, I mean,
they're signing onto this would not in any way change
the outcome of the lawsuit, right.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
No, it would not, but it certainly threw a gauntlet
down as to who what these people believe about our
public lands and hunting and public hunting and fishing in
the Southeast and there we've got a big We've got
a big problem. This is this the amicus brief with

(15:17):
the additional signings shows us that we have a big
problem in amongst conservation, hunting and fishing and public lands
users in the United States.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Basically fifteen or sixteen states with a government that is
antagonistic towards our public lands.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Yes, was what that would show well? With with elected officials, Yeah,
I would say, yeah, I mean, the governments, whatever we
make it, we vote for these dudes.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, Wyoming, Yeah, Wyoming, Alaska, Iowa, Alabama.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I think one or two of the Dakota's. There was
a long list of them.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, and I think a whole lot of our listeners
live in those states. Yes, And I think that's a
clear sign that we've got some talking to do to
our representatives.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
We do, and and so the so the the lawsuit
was tossed out this morning, dismissed this morning by the
Supreme Court, with this enormous list of case law behind it.
Behind the dismissal that this this lawsuit is not valid.
Right that those lands are appropriated and they are appropriated

(16:25):
by That's not what this frime court said. They just
said the lawsuit wasn't valid. But the fact is is
that you know, the origins that we were talking before
we get record that the origins of this were the
anger from the off road vehicle community. This is what
I understand at the Bureau of Land Management for closing

(16:47):
down and trying to recover some places that that had
been become very overused by damaged right damage totally. Uh
And like Labyrinthe Canyon and the mo Ebb. I mean,
if you've ever gone to the Rock Crawler festival down there,
you know it's pretty pretty big. It's huge are these
are This is a huge industry.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I ended up down there once by accident at the
same time as the Easter weekend GSA.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Festival or whatever.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, it was it was wild, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Wow. And and I don't share in rock hopping and
you know, like like mad Max in on the on
the desert, right, but it's cool that other people do.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
And that was, you know, one of my big takeaways
while I was down there. And what makes federal management
of our public lands so special is that we have
this multiple use mandate on them, right that stipulates that
this land is not just for the cattle grazers, not
just for the rock climbers, not just for the deer hunters,
or the miners or the oil drillers or the loggers

(17:53):
or the bird watchers. It's for all of us. And
there has to be some compromise there to to manage
for that.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
Right. Yeah, nobody can get everything they want. I mean,
it's just like living in a family or or sharing
a house with people. But the what what made me
amazed about this was that the impetus for this lawsuit,
and this we talked about this is kind of this
is like with the Bundies and all those other folks

(18:22):
too that were in the in the more it advised
Sagebrush rebel movement was if they got what they said
they wanted, they would be the ones that would be
the first loss. They would have to pay to go
rock hopping on the desert, and there would be huge
places like like when you think about the Amungiri Resort

(18:43):
down there just south of the Utah border in Arizona
where they charge what thirty eight hundred dollars a night
and they pick you up and fly you up in
a helicopter to do sunrise yoga on the mesa and
they have like, you know, little servants that come and
bring you the dates or whatever and make sure that
you're hydrated in the h you're not going on like

(19:06):
a good camera. But those people would be happy to
buy another thirty forty fifty thousand acres of this, of
course they would.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
And so that's I mean, that's the same worry that
we had back in twenty sixteen about the land transfer
movement was basically, if federal public lands go to states,
states have a mandate to have a positive ROI on
those state lands. They have to make money off of them,
and they simply would not be able to do that

(19:36):
with this level of land and the management needed the
risk of wildfires and a thousand other things that would
just bankrupt a state inevitably leading them to have to
sell these lands. Right, isn't that still the case with
this situation.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, that's for sure that case. I mean Idaho did
a full study of that, and like they had to
cut down every tree, all the timber immediately in order
to p off like the management you know, costs. But
this this lawsuit was even more kind of wild because

(20:12):
if you look at the PR campaign for it, it
was stand for our Land or something, you know. But
the lawsuit actually said that the lands have to be
disposed of, that the federal government couldn't hold them. This
one didn't say they had to be transferred right to
the states. So this this was this was you're basically

(20:33):
a taxpayer in Utah was basically paying a PR firm
and a law firm to carry a lawsuit to take
away the very place they hike, hunt, or ride their
rock crawler. This one was like we're talking about the
Overton window, the things that are acceptable. This one was

(20:54):
throwing the Overton window over way off to right field
left field? And is that why?

Speaker 2 (21:00):
I heard you say this on your on your podcast
at one point that this was maybe the slickest attempt
yet that you've seen for stealing our public lands. And
and there's a little bit of I think one thing
I worry about is issue fatigue over this thing. Right,
we keep on talking about challenges to public lands, the
threats to our public lands, and folks have been hearing
this for years and years and years now, and there's

(21:21):
this worry that eventually folks will stop paying attention. But
this one seemed like one that rose a lot more red.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Flags than usual. Why why was that?

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Why did this one stand out as so concerning and
and maybe pretending something even more concerning in the future.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
Well, because it was an incredible propaganda campaign. This one
was better. I was coming back we did uh we
were working Bureau Land Management uh sagebrush planting job in
October and we had one of them was in Colorado
and we came back to the Utah cardor Wassat's cardor there,

(22:02):
you know, and I saw those giant signs with these
like super nice looking people standing on them with their kids,
going stand for our land. And I thought it was
I mean, did you see the billboards. No not, They're
very very high end. Uh. And then it would say

(22:22):
go to stand for our land dot org. And then
there would be a map of the United States which
was like completely red west of the Mississippi, you know,
like the federal government controls everything. And it was funny
because they had even put all the Indian reservations on there.
And it was a but it was a slick propaganda campaign,

(22:45):
something like the Bundees and the the old Sagebrush rebel guys.
They would have never they would have never done this.
This was the governor of Utah and using the taxpayer
money to create a slick propaganda campaign to divest the
American people of some of the greatest red rock country
in the world.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
This idea, though, that they're putting out there, the federal
government owns all your land. The big bad boogeyman bureaucrats
in DC are making horrible decisions. We the state, you,
the people here close to these lands, you should have
You should be able to control these places. The states
should be managing these places, et cetera. That it first glance,

(23:37):
might seem like an appealing message. Why And one other
thing I'll add is that we often hear and sometimes
have seen real shortcomings with federal management sometimes of our lands. Right,
it's not always perfect. There's a lot of challenges. Yeah,
there's a lot of a lot of issues, right, So

(23:58):
it's not perfect over there. So people love to complain
about federal management of everything. But in this case public lands. Sure,
why I guess what would you say to someone with
that set of critiques? Why is federal management actually a
good thing to continue? And why is it that this idea,
this alluring idea of local control, Why is that a

(24:19):
little bit of snake oil.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Well, because you have way more input into federally controlled
public lands. Federally manages public lands, and you ever will
under SITTLA. If you look at this, that SITTLA is
a state Land Board of Utah and they've been selling
off state lands at a great clip. Now, this that

(24:44):
state transfer movement will tell you right away that well,
we're not letting these aren't school trust lands. We're taking
over huge sections of federally managed public lands and we're
not going to make them school trust lands. So we
can do whatever we want with them. But the fact is,
what do they want to do. Do you think you
would have more local control over Sittla lands. You can't

(25:10):
even you can't even camp on state lands in Colorado
without permission, if I if I understand that right. Montana
fought a huge lawsuit in the nineteen eighties over public
access to state land Section. I mean, it's just let
me tell you, I think there is a lot of

(25:31):
mismanagement of every kind in America all the time, and
in Sudan and in Brazil and in Finland. Human beings
do good things and they do bad things, and federal
management of public lands is always in conflict, and it
should be. If you and I are inherit a great,

(25:53):
big mansion with our twelve siblings, we're going to argue
over whether the bathroom fixtures ought to be gold, how
steep the steps ought to be. When Grandma comes, we're
gonna argue over that, and we're gonna make mistakes, and
somebody's gonna paint the living room, you know, purple, and

(26:14):
you're gonna be furious about that. But that doesn't mean
that you give the mansion away to some dude from
Norway and everybody in the family live out on the
streets looking back at the mansion and going like, oh, man,
remember when I had that bedroom upstairs and we.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Played chess, and wasn't that nice?

Speaker 4 (26:33):
Wasn't it great? And so I'm a big fan one.
I think that if we look at public land management
since eighteen ninety one when we had the first forest
reserve signed by President Harrison, you will find missteps, and
you will find all kinds of all kinds of things.
You will find good mostly good people working very hard

(26:58):
to try to do the right thing as they understand
it at that time, and you will see one of
the greatest success stories that Aldo Leopold. Aldo Leopold would
approve of seventy percent right. Sixty percent even Aldo Leopold,
the great conservation thinker of his time, who worked for

(27:20):
the Soil Conservation Service during the dust Bowl and was
the proponent of the first wilderness area, he would approve
about sixty percent right. And dude, when you have this
wonderful thing, you got to argue over the management. And
that's what we do. And this is good. It's good
to argue over. It's good for the OHV people to say,

(27:44):
bolm is stepping on my toes. I want to do this,
I want to do that, and people argue over that,
and they go out and look at Labyrinth Canyon and
they look at the places and they say, ah, this
is too much impact for me. And then somebody else goes,
ain't no impact here. This is wonderful. I love this.
Shooting on public lands is always going to be a

(28:05):
big It's going to be a big issue going forward.
Of course, can you take your refrigerator out there, you
blow it up with the ak and you drive off,
and somebody else goes like, oh my god, look at
this horrible thing. Right, and so you can't really do
that if you want to keep on acting that way. Yeah,
so we but it's not just compromise either. It's bringing people.

(28:30):
This is the great unifier the United States. Public land
unifies right left, Republican, Democrat, Independent. This is the last
of the great commons in this country.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
And I think a key thing to remember is despite
the fact that we can point to plenty of things
that aren't just raight, we're plenty of things that we
personally aren't quite happy with we have. We are the
envy of the world in many cases with what we have,
with this imperfect yet still really damn good system. To
carefully manage these lands as best as possible for the

(29:05):
greatest number of people. With this multiple use mandate, we
have built in a set of people hate bureaucracy, but
sometimes when you have something as precious as this public
land estate, we should have a lot of guardrails in place.
We should have a lot of process in place, We
should have a lot of public input opportunities. But yeah,

(29:26):
it slows things down sometimes. Yes, it causes some speed
bumps and challenges, but it's that important. If you if
the states had this, none of that's.

Speaker 5 (29:36):
There, no no, and and people, you know they the
nineteen seventies were the environmental decade, you know, when we
set a lot of that federal policy and law in place.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
Flipmu for instance, in nineteen seventy six, the need for process,
a National Environmental Policy Act. Night was that seventy six, I.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Think somewhere in the ballpark.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
Yeah, And these are onerous and they're difficult to deal with,
and sometimes we we'll go back and look at them
and say do we need this? And that's the beauty
of having the mansion, having the land. We can figure
out and we'll make mistakes, and you know, if the
bureaucracy has gotten so overwhelming and bloated that it's not

(30:21):
working for public land management anymore. We have the voting power,
we have the citizen power to change that.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Well.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
I think a great example of that was, you know,
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty whenever.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
That was when.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
As we moved through this land transfer movement, we were
able we as a collective outdoor collection of communities, hunters
and anglers and climbers and mountain bikers and outdoor enthusias
of all stripes, really stood up and rallied around public
lands and said, hey, this is not okay to transfer
these to states, this is not oka to to dispose

(30:58):
of them. And it got to a point where where
to get re elected in twenty twenty as a senator,
several Republican senators had to really make strong stands on
public lands and get the president at the time to sign,
for example, the Great American out Doors Act into law,
things that would show a win on the public lands

(31:19):
side of things. To help get the support of hunters
and anglers and other people who care about these things.
We were able to make it a political necessity. We
were able to influence change, and that that was just
for me a very encouraging sign that when we come
together on some of these things, we can steer the
ship that's right.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
And I mean I envision a day when, you know,
never it's never going to stop people trying to get
a hold of the Utah pubbet lands, when somebody will
buy them or you know, and there's money to be
made off of getting rid of our public lands. I mean,
you can imagine what somebody would pay for the Talladega

(32:01):
National Forest in Alabama for instance, like like it would
be a lot, you know. So you have to choose.
The people have to choose to keep this institution that
we've inherited. You gotta choose. You gotta choose every and
kind of it's kind of like being on a personal
level of self discipline. You gotta choose every day today,

(32:22):
I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna I'm gonna get up early,
I'm gonna get to work. I'm gonna make my things happen.
You got to choose this every day because the world,
if you just let this slide, you'll lose the public lands.
It's just they're too valuable.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Well, and the thing about other people, it's it's an
unfortunate imbalance. We have to show up for every single fight,
and we've got to win as many of them as
we can. And even if we win one of these fights,
like you just said, there's gonna be another one next
month or next year, five years down the road, are
fifty years down the road. These will continue over and
over and over again. On the flip side, if we

(33:01):
lose one of these battles, we lose some piece of
land or some classification of whatever it is. You lose
one of these battles, you lose these places forever in
many cases. So it's it's it's it's something we can't
take lately.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
No, and for one of the dangers of living in
a functioning country is that you become incredibly complacent. I
mean it's like I would I often I oftn ask
people to imagine what the United States would be like.
Say you're raising your grandchildren in a place where the

(33:39):
public lands have been that whole idea has been lost,
and maybe you kept the national parks where you can
go if you you know you can't take your dog.
You gotta obey all the rules because everybody's there. You know,
you can't go out on the Blm Lands and walk
for a week. You can't go out in the Missouri
Breaks of Montana and and go illk hunting without paying

(34:02):
or getting permission. You know, you can't float the Missouri
River in camp I just ask people. You can't go
to the Sipsy Wilderness in Alabama or the Bienville National
Forest in Mississippi and just go down to the creek
with the kids. You gotta either pay or you got
to own it. I ask people all the time, what

(34:23):
would that would your country? How would that affect you? Well,
for a growing number of people, mark they don't care.
They don't go outside. They're own their game boys or
whatever you call it. And you know, and they don't care.
But for us, for the people who know, and the

(34:44):
people who know what our country, the beauty of our country,
American dirt, right, American water, American mountains. This is how
you get to experience this. This is where the rich
and the poor they all get the same. This is
America to me, and it's not just to me.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, And you know, I think there's a lot of
different parts of our American society, government, political system that
feel very out of our hands, that fear feel out
of our control, that feel so far above us and

(35:23):
what well, yes, yes that is true. But my point being,
I personally don't feel like I have much influence over
or could really change something when it comes to let's say,
artificial intelligence policy and how that's going to impact the
future of our government and defense system and privacy matters,

(35:44):
let's say, but public lands and wildlife. Actually, we have
some pretty strong tangible means to influence decisions there. There
are there are systems in place, and it's it's really
I mean, it's still huge, but it's still relatively approachable
enough that our voice is actually mattered. There are clear,

(36:07):
simple things we can do that can help, Like, we
can change this. This is a part of our country
that we should not feel nihilistic about because we actually
can change the narrative.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
And we have since eighteen ninety one podcast I was
looked up. They had this guy, I think it was
in the twenties. They were the Week's Act had been
passed nineteen eleven, which allowed the federal government to buy
like logged out and abandoned lands in the East. Right,
they wanted their own national forests, and they had this guy,

(36:42):
Uncle Joe Kennon. He was a Senator from Illinois, and
every time anybody brought up in Congress that you know,
to purchase like the Apalachical and National forests, he would say,
not one cent for scenery. And he would yell the
same thing over and over, rope and uh. And so

(37:03):
we have we have had this. We have had Uncle
Joe Cannon with us since eighteen ninety one. At least
we had him with the robber barons in Montana, you know,
who said those who follow us can damn well take
care of themselves and then like drink some kind of
like super good liquor, you know, and while making fun
of all the people like working in the mine. But

(37:26):
we've had these people forever, and I think of Uncle
Joe Cannon. They still set up the Bankhead National Forest
in Alabama, Appalachian in Florida, the White Mountains National Forest.
He was yelling not one ship for trainery while we
while the rest of us were getting all this beautiful
stuff done. Right. Yeah. So what's happened more recently that

(37:52):
I really want to see changed is that we have
thrown public lands and conservation and clean water and the
future of our hunting vision in a culture war basket
where somehow it landed on the left side when it
couldn't be no more.

Speaker 6 (38:11):
The most destructive environmental regimes on earth have been communists
have been leftists, true, and like Pinochet, and Chili was
a right winger and he was pretty bad.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
Rady gave away the really sold their rivers. But the
trick was authoritarian regimes on right or left have been
terrible for people's freedom and for the environment. But we
have got to get conservation in the public lands out
of the culture wars basket. And we it's not in
there for me, it's not in there for you, But

(38:46):
we've got to get them out, and we've got to
bring them in front of the two political parties and
say this is what we're gonna do, buddy, little little feller.
We're keeping the National Forest Bureau of Land Management lands.
We're keeping all of our public lands and our National
Wildlife refuges, which are unbelievable crown jewels. We're keeping all

(39:08):
that stuff. We're gonna have clean water to fish in
and drink and big, strong, healthy kids raised on big
clean air because this is America. And now you can
argue over how to achieve that yeah, boys and girls
in Congress. But that goal is one that is going
to be outside of your political like grooviness, whatever it

(39:30):
is you're doing with the big signs where you're taking
the tax payer money and making big signs in Utah. Yeah,
and with that action.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
And rather than this being an argument over is this
a goal that you know one party is going to
pursue and one's not. How about we argue over the
solutions rather than like doesn't matter, because it matters. We
have to make it known to both parties that this
matters to us. And then yeah, let's get the right
side and the left side to then debate and argue
and you know, butt heads over the right ways to

(39:59):
get there. But when it's all on one side, we're
in trouble.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
We're in trouble. And it's not I mean, I just
don't think, well, I know people, people who know if
you fish or hunt, particularly, you know that you can't
do that without clean water and public lands and public access.
I mean, it's not like some kind of theory. It's
not abstract. And the other problem is is we inherited this.

(40:27):
I'm older than you are, but you and I have
come up in a time where we had these things
based on the work and hard fault battles of our forebears.
I mean, the same kind of way we fought King George,
like we got this, we don't really have the right
to go, like, ah, it's just too much, you know,
like Beavis and butthead that thing where they were going

(40:49):
to save the people in the burning airplane but they
couldn't get the door opened, and he goes, he go
Beavis says, a, this is too hard, and the other
guy goes, yes, something's hard, it's not worth doing, and
they just leave and the planet bloods up. It's like
we inherited something wonderful, yeah, and we just can't. It
ain't gonna go on my watch.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
No, so so it I'm I'm happy that our conversation
today is one that has some good news, which is
that this lawsuit that was still concerning for a lot
of people has been thrown out, so that battle was won.
We got you know, that gopher was knocked on the head.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
That's yeah, that gopher. There's many other gophers coming.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, some more gophers coming, right. It seems like this
is a sign of more to come. Can you can
you can you elaborate a little bit of what you
think might be coming next or what we need to
be keeping an eye out, because it seems like this
is not an anomaly, right right.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
So the the problem with politics in the United States
right now is that it's become oversimplified, you know, And
that's true, and in this public land so that the
public land thing should not be a political issue, but
it is. So what I think is coming is that
we are going to see more and more defunding of

(42:10):
the agencies that manage these lands. I know that the
wildlife refuges are kind of in funding crisis now, and
you're gonna see more and more. It's it's there's actually
a strategy here that's been going on since the seventies eighties,
where it's called defund and decry. So Congress doesn't allogate
the money to the to the say the US Forest

(42:32):
Service or the Forest Service has to spend all its
money on fires that doesn't get any more, and then
there's no trail work done, and then there's no there's
no creek restoration work done, there's no logging clean up done,
and people go like the the campground isn't clean enough,
and people go, this is ridiculous. I didn't bring my

(42:55):
family out here to look at a turned over outhouse.
And then you say, then somebody goes, you know, what
would really be good is if they didn't have this
far service stuff anyway, because they're not doing the job,
are they so? And that's what is that. I see
that coming big time, and and I see overcrowding of

(43:15):
public lands. I thought it was gonna bring more constituents
in just to celebrate public lands. But in places overcrowded
on public lands, like during the COVID years year or
whatever that was, uh, people are going, man, this is awful.
There's too many people. And so I see that people
the ones who want to divest us of the public lands,

(43:38):
they're gonna be getting working the budgets down and they're
gonna be pointing out every instance of mismanagement and then going,
wouldn't it be good if like you didn't even have
this mansion?

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah? Well, you know, like you said, politics has unfortunately
gotten I guess I don't know how to describe it.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
But politics are tribal.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
They raise a lot of emotions that you get these
like team kind of ideas where if you identify as
a Republican or identify as a Democrat, you feel like
you're kind of you have to take everything in that bucket, right.
But if you were to look at the administration coming
in here next week and set everything else aside, everything

(44:36):
else that might that they're doing good, every decision that
we might be in supportive and if you look simply
at what happened last time around when it comes to
public lands, there are a series of trends which I
think fall in line with what you just said. I mean,
for example, last time the guy put in charge of
the Bureau of Land Management was one of the most
prominent folks speaking out against public lands, speaking out about

(45:00):
disposing of public lands, and that guy was put in
charge of the public lands last time. The playbook was
written by this guy again for the upcoming administration on
how to get rid of public lands, how to like
you said, defund, decry, etc. There was this death of
a thousand cuts that was taking place over the course
of that four years, where you saw many of our

(45:22):
national monuments significantly reduced in size, like Bear's Ears, where
I know you spend a bunch of time recently, Ascalante,
you saw some of some very special places, there's been
a lot of conversation around whether they are the right
place for really risky mining projects, things like you know
the Boundary Waters area where that was opened up possibly

(45:45):
for leases, and then most recently that was a moratorium
was put in place, but there we might see that
opened up again. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
an incredible iconic landscape of America, has been debated for
many decades, and whether or not that's to be opened
up for drilling never was opened up until this last administration.

(46:05):
The Roadless Rule something that's protected these last roadless areas
across our national forests that was rescinded in the areas
such as the Tongest National Forest. So there's there's all
of these different examples where public lands and healthy wild
places were kind of slashed away at, picked away at,
picked away at, picked away at, defunded, et cetera. Everything

(46:27):
else aside in this one arena, there's a lot of
sign for concern based on what happened last time around.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yes, do you expect a.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
That to continue as it was? Do you think it's
going to accelerate given the fact that there's not a
second time around they're shooting for.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
This is like, this is it?

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Do you have any other thoughts predictions on as far
as what we need to be keeping tabs on, prepared
to fight back on anything like that.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
I do so. One the last one twenty sixteen through
we saw the rescinding of the monuments in Utah, right,
so there was a weird quid pro quo there where
Utah kind of delivered for President Trump and so they

(47:20):
got these things in return. And that's a big can
of worms. It's really interesting. I think people should that
are listening to this should be looking at that, like,
you know, you deliver so x number the majority of
the vote and you'll get this. You know, did the
American people want the reduction of Bears, Ears or Grand
Staircase Escalante? They did not, and they said that repeatedly,

(47:44):
but they got that. That's what happened to us anyway.
So in a sense that was a but in a
sense that was a quid pro quo to the Utah.
So I think that's really repulsive and I don't think
that the American people are going to accept that. But
like the appointment of William Parker Penley as head of
the BLM, who is this fossil from the early Reagan

(48:08):
years who was so scandal ridden even then as a
young man that he went out with James Watt back
in those days. Right, But so so there was this
fossil there that they found because they were, as President
Trump said, the first time, we were highly unprepared to win.
We were really not prepared. We didn't understand so much

(48:31):
of what we wanted to do during those four years.
Whether you agree with that or not. Right, So, on
this administration this time, as my wife said this the
other day, the American people voted to kick over the
apple cart for a lot of different reasons. Yeah, and
a lot of apples have spilled out, and we're going

(48:53):
to determine. Now, this is way different than the first administration,
although it's so similar in that it is radically pro business. Okay,
so if you can make money mining out right outside
the boundary waters, that's going to be on the table,
and the America people will be asked to engage deeply

(49:16):
to say we're pro business as well, we understand these things.
To have a multinational global company come and put in
jeopardy to boundary waters, it's not our dear idea of
good business. We're not going to do that, Okay. Ambler
Road in Alaska probably not good business to open that

(49:37):
up again. I would ask anybody to listen to the
podcast I did with John Leshie about the eighteen seventy
two mining law. We're talking about expanding mining on public
lands in the United States East and West under a
law written in eighteen seventy two to encourage a guy
with a pickaxe and a burrow to go grab public

(49:58):
land to make it his own and dig a hole
and find something that we needed. That law has to
be reformed, repealed, rescinded before we can do mining in
America in a in a sensible fashion of good business.
So the fact that that law is not on the
table here, that's very concerning. People should be working on

(50:20):
that now. The American people should demand that American minerals
are used for by American companies to produce American jobs
and American resources. All right. So there's going to be
a radical pro business emphasis in the Trump administration, Okay,
but I myself am not afraid. I think that we

(50:42):
should be wary, and we should say that's good business
and that's not good business, and we will stand for this,
and we will not stand for this, and we're going
to be able to do that. And for instance, the
government efficiency or whatever, the department of whatever that extraining
this extracurricular thing is, we could use that mark, We

(51:04):
could use that, We could use that in public lands management.
How do we make public lands management better, more efficient?
How do we get local communities employed finn and timber
in the Tongus? How do we get local communities employed
restoring creeks in the bitter Root after those fires? Right?

(51:24):
Because we are not doing that right now and it's
not good.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Doesn't that come back though, to the budget issues?

Speaker 4 (51:31):
So much of it we don't on prioritization of the budget.
I noticed that we have lots of budget for certain
things that I don't particularly think are healthy. I'm saying,
like the American people are going to have to say,
you know, creek restoration on public lands is a priority
for me, and you can do whatever you want with

(51:55):
this money, but we would like to see it allocated
in this way more efficiently as well. You know, I'm
not sure that that building new RV parks is really
a great use of the money. For instance, Yeah, when
you have areas where you could, you could fence off

(52:16):
rapoia in places and create incredible fisheries in clean water
down Street when you have just all of this work
that we could be do with. So I just I'm
not afraid of this. I may turn out to be
a Pollyanna or overly optimistic, but I believe that when

(52:36):
the American people decided to upset the apple cart here
that it doesn't mean that we want filthier water and
no public lands and and all of us to have
our all our rare earth materials stolen by some company
from Chili.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Would you would you say, though, given what seems to
be a pretty clear, as you said, probi business emphasis
for the next four years, very pro business, if we
were to grow complacent and bury our heads and our
phones and our Netflix shows, and or just being out

(53:14):
in the woods by ourselves, hunting and fishing and just
doing our own thing, if we were to do that
and not engage, whether it's going to come up in
the next four years with this radical, very pro business agenda,
would it be fair to say that we could.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Expect to see a lot of these special places.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
In danger if we don't make sure we're in it.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
One hundred and Not only that, but they're the the
the powers that wont to take over public lands and
sell them to their wealthy friends. Our ascendant right now, Yeah,
I mean, I mean the I mean, we have probably
the most billionaires making policy that we've ever had, and

(53:54):
the few is like normal people. So you're gonna have
to counter that. But there's three hun undred and forty
something million Americans. Let me, I have a quote that
I always use, and it's perfect for this thing. The
struggle may be a moral one, or it may be

(54:16):
a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical,
but there will be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without
a demand. It never did, and it never did. Will
find out just what any people will quietly submit to,
And you have found out the exact measure of injustice
and wrong which will be imposed upon them. And these

(54:38):
will continue until they're resisted with words or blows or both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress. That was Frederick Douglass talking about
slavery in the South. Wow. So that's what I think.
If you are not willing to stand up, or if

(54:58):
you're watching and the running on the treadmill at the
gym watching Fox News. They're making you think there's only
two kinds of Americans and they hate each other and
they won't ever agree on anything. And I don't know
why the other side does it too, I guess, but

(55:19):
I don't know why they're what motive we have for
dividing the American people, But if we remain this divided,
we'll lose the public lands and the conservation that supports
hunting and fishing. We shouldn't be divided over that.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
We have talked about various permutations of this issue, you know,
at least over the last decade. You and I I
know what You've talked about many many other people over
many decades. So now in twenty twenty five, we're quarter
of the way through this new millennia.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
I guess it'd be or sorry century. What can we
do now?

Speaker 2 (56:04):
What are the most positive productive means for not just
enduring what might be coming, but also influencing in a
positive way. What's the battle cry? What's the game plan
here of these coming years?

Speaker 4 (56:20):
I think we're going to have to So the energy
is on the right wing at the moment, and we
as conservatives or whatever you political label you want to
put on most hunters and fishermen are going to have
to get through to the elected people, the people we

(56:45):
vote for, that these things are priorities and that they
will not be thrown in some basket of culture war topics.
That these are the wildlife refuge system. It's so wonderful,
like it is such a crown jewel of America. The
national forests are so important to us, our us as

(57:08):
as Americans, our identity, our freedom. Okay, these are not
political footballs. And so we're going to have to get
through into this pro business community that we that there
are certain things we will not be, we will not accept,

(57:30):
you know. I mean this is another topic. But we
we have huge success stories all the way back to
eighteen ninety one on conservation in America, and huge the
dextervation of the bison, the loss of almost all the
waterfowl that you know. So we we had these huge
failures and these enormous successes, and we're doing both right

(57:55):
now again. But we're like we're failing with clean water
throughout the Midwest, really failing. And we let the Clean
Water Act be trimmed back to its original definition in
nineteen seventy two to the point where we're failing to
protect the clean water that supports fishing and swimming and

(58:17):
all that. So we have these huge failures, and the
folks that we just elected are not the ideal people
to address that. Let's say that I'm going to be
very objective here. The folks that we just object elected.
Donald Trump, for instance, will tell you that he doesn't
know anything about that. That's what he told the Farm

(58:37):
Bureau when they rescinded the Waters of the US rule
last time. He said, I don't even know what it is,
but it's terrible, and you folks told me that we
don't want it, and so I'm getting rid of it.
He said the same thing about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He said, nobody cares about this. It's open, right. So
obviously people didn't speak up and say that's not true.

(59:02):
We do care about it. And you may not support
the Waters of the US rule, but I'll bet you
don't support eating drinking blue green algae in de moins.
So these folks, I see this as an opportunity, mark totally.
I don't think somebody like Elon Musk is so focused

(59:24):
on Mars or Venus or whatever that planet they want
to go to, which is fine with me. I'm like,
have at it, man, little rockets, you know, like I
like smart people. Sure, right, But here's the thing. A
guy who's spending a lot of time thinking about Mars
and stuff, he's probably not thinking about the water fishing

(59:44):
in Des Moines, yes, or in Sioux Falls. And that's
our business and that's what we know. And so but
I would say this, I doubt that President Trump or
Elon Musk or vvak Ramus, I bet none of them
actually are going like, you know, what I really want

(01:00:05):
to do is get rid of the Talladega National Forest, right,
you know, you know what I bet i'd like to do.
I'd like to pollute mobile base so nobody can fish
in it or have a nice house on it. They're
not doing that. And these are jd Vance for instance,
when to Yale whatever, the guy has some education, he's
not gonna say that clean water is not important. So

(01:00:30):
it's up to us now to put some apples back
in this apple cart and say this apple's really important.
Don't let that one go down the hill. And I
honestly think that we're in a place where we could have,
We could effect positive change in the United States right

(01:00:50):
now that to me, we've been a little too complacent
to do. We've kind of rested on the laurels of
the nineteen seventies and a Wilderness Act of sixty four
and the dust bowl stuff. You know, that's what I think.
I'm pretty excited. Actually. I think it's a very dangerous

(01:01:11):
time for all the reasons you mentioned, and I think
that times of danger kind of make me feel better.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
So what are some specific tactics or actions that we
as individuals can take to help make sure that we
grab this apple, put it back in the cart, and say, hey, folks,
this one's really important. Do not screw this one up,
give this one some tender love and care. Listen to us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
How do we actually do that?

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
Hell?

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Because I it's an idea and it's a sentiment that
makes a lot of sense, But I think a lot
of folks then still wonder, like, well, what does that
mean to my daily life, or what does that mean
for me this week? Or how do why is an
individual in Des Moines, Iowa actually do that?

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Well, I've decided and it's I do handle the podcast
or back undrenders and anglers. So maybe I have a
conflict of interest there, but I decided in the last
ten years looking, I've been writing this book for five
and a lot of the research was on how did
we get like how did you get the Clean Water
Act passed? You know? And one as a as a

(01:02:23):
as an individual, read books and listen to podcasts and
and and really concentrate on what it is that you
think is important in life. I'm this is kind of like, like,
like what this is. I wrote a piece for Field
and Stream years ago and it was in response to
unfettered energy development on their own plateau which I went

(01:02:44):
to see and I thought, this is not good, right
this We can get the energy without doing this right?
And uh, I wrote a piece called what do you
really believe in? And so number one, I'm going to
answer this as quickly as I can. What do I
really believe in? You know, like clean water and having
kids swimming and catching crawdads and a creek that doesn't

(01:03:04):
poison them, having public lands where I can go, like
a person can go hunting for a week or even
a day, or you could just take a six pack
of beer out and sit on the river, you know, right,
so I think that the hunters and fishermen are listening
to your podcast are going to say, I do believe
in these things. I believe in them strongly. And the

(01:03:27):
second thing, which it took me a while because I'm
kind of highly individualistic, was that old Hemingway thing from
to have and have not, where the guy says a
man alone just ain't got no chance. And the truth
is is Trout Unlimited backcountry hunters and anglers, Isaac Walton
League Ducks Unlimited to the Mix is probably the greatest

(01:03:53):
wetlands conservation group in the world. They all have problems.
They're running by human beings, and human beings are fallible, yes,
but Americans in large teams have really driven the positive
changes that we're talking about. And that I hate. I

(01:04:15):
don't hate to say it, I just it took me
a long time to get to this is you gotta
join with like minded brothers and sisters. And those numbers
equate to a politician going like sending the staff. We
got to meet these folks. Sorry, I don't want to
hear about clean water in Iowa, but there's like twenty

(01:04:37):
five thousand people who might not vote for me next time.
And then one of the old time politicians. I think
a guy told me this once in DC. He said, yeah,
it's a good idea, Now make me do it. That's it. Yeah,
And it's tough because used to be sportsman. In the

(01:05:00):
nineteen thirties, they had all of these local sportsmen groups
and Montana was full of them. I don't know about
where you grew up, if it was or not, but
Montana was full of them. Or Valley County Sportsmen, great
prickly pair of sportsmen, Hellgate hunters and anglers in Missoula,
and they were incredibly politically active on a statewide and

(01:05:22):
local level. And those they got older and older. I
would go to the meetings, you know, and everybody got
older and older, and then they just kind of they're
still around, some of them, but they've they've waned in power,
and so I would like to see that again. But
I don't think we're gonna see that because people are
so busy, man, Like you got little kids. My kids

(01:05:45):
are grown and I'm still like like college tuition. Oh,
and everybody's busy, but it's not. You're not too busy
really to join like back huntry hunters and anglers or
or Trout Unlimited or something. Yeah, and they're thereby amplify
your voice, multiply your voice. That's my answer. I guess. Yeah,

(01:06:07):
what is the public lands equivalent to that? Like National
Forest Foundation?

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Yeah, I mean, like you said, BHA is about as
good of a modern day version of these sportsman's clubs too,
right with Pine Knights and things like that. Like that's
that's the best example I've seen of the younger crowd
activating as a community.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
Yeah. I would let me add this to And you've
done some of this, I've done some I've done some
of it, But I would like to do more volunteering
with like these BHA things and in meeting people of
like mind. Ye. I gotta tell you. I was. I
was feeling very beat down the other day, and I
was working on a chapter in my book which involved Alabama.

(01:06:54):
And I called a young guy there who's a biologist
and a fanatical hunting and fision guy, and he was
on his way to waterfowl hunting up in North Alabama,
and it happened to be in a place that I
went to in high school. And we got it on
Google Earth and we looked at it, and I felt
better for three days after just talking with Joe Jenkins

(01:07:16):
and his enthusiasm for going hunting down there, and I
realized that there's all these people who love the same
things I do and are are really motivated to fight
for them, and that you meet those It's like those
fence removal things they had in Colorado and in eastern
Montana while wetlands restoration planting projects. It's, yeah, we gotta

(01:07:42):
we gotta seek out people of like mind and begin
to form tribe.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Yeah, get that snowball rolling and those little local volunteer
efforts might not save the world today, but those are
those start points. And like you said, you bring community together,
you establish new connections, you build energy off of each other,
you gain your tank is refueled by being around other

(01:08:08):
like minded people. Yeah, so such a great example.

Speaker 4 (01:08:14):
You know, stories and then and I just saw it
like if I were, if I were really young now,
I'd be volunteering on a lot of those to try
to find people of like mine. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Yeah, yeah, that was such a great You know, I've
done ten of those over the last twenty four months
or so for the Working for Wildlife tour, and that
was my biggest takeaway from that was just the power
of bringing these people together that all care about this stuff,
and so many signs of hope just by being around

(01:08:44):
each other and hearing stories and doing something actual, tangible,
positive right here and now you're making a positi difference.
Right now, you are regaining agency. We talked earlier about
how so much feels outside of our control. But when
you're out there on the ground planting a tree alongside
another guy or girl who also loves hunting or fishing

(01:09:05):
in the outdoors, you can't help but feel a little
bit better, and you can't help but be inspired to
do a little bit better the next time too.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
I mean that's how we've been doing it since cave
man days, right, Yeah, Like get that mammoth and then
everybody think happy everybody was when you got the mammoth,
and like you're clapping him on the back. You might
hate this guy, you know when you're not hunting, but
you're going like, man, what a good shot with that
at laddle, right, Like this is community and the and

(01:09:32):
the ladies are all happy. They're like hauling the meat back,
you know, and it's like this is community, this is tribe.
It's something in us. It's as old as human beings, right, yeah,
And I was I was following y'all when you were
doing that. We were actually and see, I've been doing
this big planting job, but that's a paid job with
the Mule Deer Foundation. It's it's a beautiful job, but

(01:09:55):
it's not the same. Everybody's there to you know, it's work.
Everybody's with a huge gold but it's work. And those
volunteer things. We rolled fence, and dude, it was so
I know you've been doing this, but it was so
it is actionable, quantifiable yep. Right, we were taking they

(01:10:17):
were dead. There was hair and dead mule deer at
this crossing and that fence was completely useless. It was
just left there from after a forest fire like twenty
years ago. And we rolled that fence right out of
that mule deer trail that came from the high country
to the to the winter room.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
You did it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
Yeah, Observable, actionable, quantifiable. That's that's what I kept asking people,
like with the climate chain stuff and all that that
I got so dis engaged from because I was like,
I was like, I just need to see something actionable, quantifiable,
and observable, and that's you know, planting, restoring wetlands, restoring grassland,

(01:11:02):
clanton trees, burning fuels reduction yep. I was like, I
won't add actionable, quantifiable, observable, and those volunteer projects are
all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Yeah, yeah, such a great example. So I was going
to ask you a question which you just already answered mostly,
but I will give you an opportunity to add anything

(01:11:35):
else to it. The question being, you know, one of
the first things you said that we should do entering
this era is to get educated, right, to pay attention
to this stuff. And so I think this is something
I've brought up to you maybe every time we've talked
some version of this. But you know, there's the famous
Leopold quote the curse of an ecological education is discovering

(01:11:55):
that you live in a world of wounds, something along
those lines. He said, Basically, the more we educate ourselves
on these issues, the more we pay attention to the
news about the environment and public lands and wildlife, the
more you're going to realize there's a lot of stuff
in danger, there's a lot of stuff getting you know,
there's a lot of stuff that's not doing great right.
So what I'm always looking for are ways to maintain hope,

(01:12:20):
ways not to feel like, man, this whole thing's going
to the shit or eventually. You mentioned a couple of
great examples ways to do that, getting involved community volunteering.
You mentioned just talking to someone who's going on hunting
and being.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
Reinvigorated through that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Do you have any other things in your life that
help you stay positive, because sometimes when you zoom out
and you look at the long term trajectory of our
natural world and the environment and clean air and wildlife
across the world and all that kind of stuff, it
can get a little dark and dreary.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
How do you stay hopeful?

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
Boy? I hope you don't edit that. You may have
to edit this out. But uh So, the all species
go through population overshoots, and not all of them, but most,
and they fill up their ecological niche and then they
decline in numbers. They don't go extinct. It's not like

(01:13:19):
apocalypse and fire and that you right. So, human population
on our planet is supposed to peak at like nine
point eight ten billion, maybe twelve, I'm not sure, but
it peaks at about two hundred and fifty years much
less probably, and at that point, the children, our great

(01:13:41):
great grandchildren are going to be living in a world
that is in recovering from all of the things that
people did to get insatiable resource demand. Right. So here's
my point, and I call this carry in the fire.
Those of us who understand how powerful the rivers and

(01:14:03):
the forests and the wildlife are have a unique moment
in history. What we prioritize, conserve, protect, steward now is
what's going to be in that recovering world in one
hundred and fifty years. And so there has never been

(01:14:25):
a time where it was more important to teach your
children to hunt and shoot and how beautiful it is
to hunt squirrels and to take food from the land
and fish from the water, and know that that water
is clean enough that it's going to make you strong
and healthy so you can run one hundred yard dash tomorrow.

(01:14:46):
It is or this is physicality too, like to teach
children and to keep ourselves fit right to be powerful
and strong, and to teach our children like health and
connections to nature. Because this is the fire that we're
going to carry through what this population overshoot into a

(01:15:07):
future where maybe there's one billion people on earth and
there are incredible numbers of wildlife and fish and oceans
pouring around without big plastic garbage patches and stuff. Right
but right now is the moment. And I think about that,
and I think about Doug Talamy's Homegrown National Park stuff

(01:15:29):
where they're saying, man, you don't have to have twenty acres.
You can plant a pollinator belt of native plants in
your yard and those pollinators are going to drive in
that place. Like my own backyard garden has so much
diversity in it now of these insects that I've just
never seen before, and it's kind of like it's not

(01:15:52):
very big, and they came from somewhere and they came
there because I planted these pollinators. And it's a microcosm.
But what is the microcosm except for these made up
of these small things. So I'm I'm actually and it's
my bias, right, Like I already wanted to teach my

(01:16:15):
kid how to pike fish. And my daughter is a
fisherman and and a hunter, and my son is a
hunter and a fisherman, and and they they know the
power of these things because my wife and I taught
it to them. But it's they're carrying this fire and
they're young they're not like in big conservation groups going
to d C advocating with that. That's our business, right,

(01:16:39):
but they know what they know where the bread's buttered,
they know what's powerful. Yeah, and it's our it's our
business to carry that fire through this time and so
that that making sure that it goes on.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
It's a hell of an obligation. But we're awfully we're
awfully fortunate to be able to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful obligation because for me it
involves doing what I already want to do.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
True, it's a there's a lot worth fighting for still,
that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:17:17):
Oh my, so much, there is so much left to
not left. There's just so much there. Like I mean,
I live near the Lewis in Clark National Forest, and
I don't know where you're at on this, but like
this morning I went, I was going to the dump
and the wolf. It's called the wolf moon, this moon,

(01:17:38):
this January moon, and I don't know if it's an
optical illusion or not, but it was like five feet
it was the biggest moon I've ever seen going down
over the mountains.

Speaker 3 (01:17:47):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:17:48):
And I thought, just how lucky I was one to
have the Bob Marshall wilderness out there west of my house,
and two to see this moon and had gotten up,
you know, before you've got light. So I got to
see this and it was it was a thing where
I just felt lucky. And to who much is given,

(01:18:10):
much is expected. I think.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Yep, so so true and perfect, perfect sentiments to kind
of send us out here. Can can you tell us
how you've you've alluded to this book project you've been
working on for a few years now. Are you at
a point you can tell us anything about that yet?
Can you tease it? Can you give us anything as
far as what to look forward to or when to

(01:18:33):
look forward to it?

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
Yeah, I'm I'm gonna finish this year.

Speaker 3 (01:18:37):
I don't know that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):
I guess it'll be out next year. I'm a but uh,
it's a public lands book, and it's a lot of
it is profiles of and of trips like on national
forests and part of it. I mean I read your
book early, and you and I are how many years
ago is that we talked about these projects?

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Well like seven, yeah, something like that, because my book
came out at the end of twenty nineteen, right, so I.

Speaker 4 (01:19:04):
Think seven years ago you told me. I said, well,
I got this contract, I'm working on this book, and
you're like, I'm working on one too, and you'd been
at it for a couple of years. But it's and
your book is also experiential. You know, are talking about
this before we hit the record, I wanted to do
a it did turn out to be brief, but a

(01:19:25):
history of how we got public lands and an understanding
of all the issues regard to that. But I wanted
the second part of the book to be journeys, just trips,
and so I've done some incredible trips. Mostly I've sat here,
as you know, as a writer, sat here like a
limpet glued to this chair. But the it's like places

(01:19:50):
like the Tuskegee National Forests in Alabama. It's kind of
a deep dive into the history and what's there, and
based around a trip there on the Bartram Trail, which
if anybody's listening to this, you know, go like as
the winter gets went towards spring, man, go go look
at the Bartram Trail, And that's James Bartram, the naturalists

(01:20:10):
who went to the Creek Nation back in seventeen nineties,
I think, and recorded all the plants and all the
stuff he saw. It was William Bartram, and he he
wrote a book called The Travels with William Bartram, which
you should people should read like this is like and
that was that. That's Alabama. There's another one apple a

(01:20:31):
Chicola Forests where you go through the Bradwell Bay Wilderness,
which's like the strangest likes. It's water up to your
waist for miles and miles. Should shone National Forests, first
national forest in America, right with the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve,
that very first natural forest. We do about a forty

(01:20:52):
mile trip through that nice So that's where I've been
man for all the last you know, three years really
and it's it's like I said, I've been glued. You're glue.
You get to do the trips, but then you're glued
to your you really got to be glued.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
To the You're you're living vicariously through your own words
for a while there you're wishing you could be out
there adventuring again, but you're just you gotta get it
on the page.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
I'm definitely in that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
I'm in that phase right now for the new project.
And uh, it takes some takes some discipline that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
It's not always the easiest.

Speaker 4 (01:21:31):
Are there days where you don't get it?

Speaker 3 (01:21:35):
Are there days?

Speaker 4 (01:21:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Sure, there are some days. I I've really tried to
stick to a little bit. Every day has been my
mantra this time around, because the first time around, I
had a lot of days I couldn't do it because
I couldn't do it quite right. And so my new
my new method this year, not this year, this project
has been a little bit of progress every single day
of the work week at least, and so that it's

(01:21:58):
just kind of you're slowly chipping away at it, and
it's always in the back of your mind, even when
you're not the computer. You're in the shower, on a
walk or something, and an idea hits you. So that's
that's been my approach this time, and so far, so good.
But you ask me in five.

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):
More months and I'll tell you whether or not it's
worked or not.

Speaker 4 (01:22:13):
Right for sure, Well, I just I mean, I'm very
impressed with your work, and to some extent, like I
was when I was talking to you just then, I'm
listening because I mean, I've been doing this forever and
I still don't know really, I have never gotten to
the point where I wake up at eight o'clock, I

(01:22:33):
walk in the office at eight o'clock, and I produce
words until twelve o'clock, and then I go out and
go fishing. Yeah, or take the kids doing that. I
never I've never done that. At it's it's always been
a struggle to figure out where it starts, how to
I don't know so, but it is a life we've chosen.

Speaker 5 (01:22:54):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
The best thing that has ever happened in my writing
life might be some of the best advice we could
give anyone when it comes to trying to tackle some
of these issues we're talking about, which has been that
I have given myself permission should just do a little something,
even if it's not very good, even if it's not perfect,

(01:23:15):
even if it's not going to be the best book
in the world. This is not the best sentence, this
is not the best paragraph. It's just a little something.
But I did something, and I gave my self permission
to just do a little bit of something, even though
it's not great. And by doing that, it gets the
ball rolling. And if I can just give myself permission

(01:23:36):
to write a few shitty words and not feel bad
about that it usually leads to me writing a bunch
of okay words, which then maybe someday I can turn
into some.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
Page is worth of good words.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
And I think that might be a little bit of
the trick to making a difference when it comes to
stewarding our public lands and standing up for wild places.
It's you know what, you can do a little something today.
It might not fix it all, but you could sign
that petition today or maybe next week. You know, you
could call your representative of your senator and yeah, that's
not going to fix it all. And maybe you don't
come across super eloquently on the phone, maybe you're not

(01:24:11):
the best speaker, whatever it is, But but do the
little bit you can today, because all of this stuff,
little bit by little bit, one crappy paragraph at a time.
You write a book, or you stand up for your
public lands, or you save the damn world.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
That is so, that is so you're get on, man.
I'm glad I know you. One thing, when when you
finished that, I was thinking about the what the real
death the doom right is to think that if I
think about the book all of a sudden, and you

(01:24:47):
think about like saving the public lands. Oh and or Daunte.
Oh my lord, You're like, like, is there going to
be any fishing in twenty twenty five? You go, I
don't know. To that is to do small, actionable, quantifiable
and deserrable things today and and do them while you're

(01:25:08):
thinking about it, and then if the rest of the
day goes the hell you did that? Ye yeah, what's that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
You had a win, You had.

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
To win a small victory. But yeah, I think that's right.
It's like and that's so much of our conservation world
has gotten to be this like abstract thing. Oh no,
like the garbage gyre in the ocean or something. You go, ah, no,
what am I gonna do? Well, the answer is you're

(01:25:38):
not gonna do anything about that today. You know, maybe
you you good? You go over to the tap and
drink a glass of water instead of buying a plastic bottle.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Yeah, do every little tiny thing we can is a
starting point.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
It's the next step.

Speaker 7 (01:25:55):
It's it's progress because perfect perfect the attempt to reach
perfection leads to a lot of paralysis at least never starting,
least never doing anything.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
And uh right, yeah, we gotta fight that temptation. We
gotta we gotta.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
Don't you think there's a there's a terrible human tendency
too to go like to go to the macrocosm immediately go, well,
there nothing I can do about that, and that lets
you off the hook, yep, and you just like go
grab the grab the coke and the funions and kick
back and watch another YouTube. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
There's a lot of people that have fallen into that trap.

Speaker 4 (01:26:35):
Myself. Yeah, I mean I kind of I work against
that trap, like all the time I was. I remember
back when uh I used to really I was into
jiu jitsu for like twenty years, you know, and still am.
But I'm I've aged out of like doing it too
too hard on as hard as I want to. Uh.

(01:26:58):
But people would come to class, you know, and they
would be all excited and they're go, I'm gonna like
be a blue belt in three months. You know, I'm
gonna I'm gonna win the butte, you know. Uh intra
murals like in like Christmas, and those are the people
who never came They never came back to class.

Speaker 8 (01:27:16):
Yeah, And the and the people who go like, wow, man,
that's a really interesting move, show me that again, and
then and then they would go up the next night
and the next night, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:27:30):
Uh, and it was it was very much of what
we're talking about. Yeah, the people who wanted to be
great now were the ones who ended up not coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
Yeah, what's one small step you can take? What's one
How can you get one percent better tomorrow? How can
you make some small tangible difference this week?

Speaker 4 (01:27:50):
I think, Uh, have you got one that you could
think of right now, Like on the on the public
lands thing. I think it would be to tell your
friends about the Supreme Court decision this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
Yeah, yeah, right, I think so.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
I think that passed along the fact that hey, this
is a thing that reared its ugly head again and
we're fortunate that it got shot down. But hey, I
think I think for me, the overwhelming takeaway from this
conversation and from just kind of the moment is that
it's time to re engage.

Speaker 4 (01:28:24):
I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
There's been a little bit of sitting back on our
laurels the last handful of years. It kind of felt
like we we you know, won the battle there for
a moment, and I think it's time to to rally.
It's time to re engage, start to start really paying
attention again, because uh, like you said, if we don't engage,

(01:28:46):
if we don't stand up on this stuff, there's there's
folks that have other incentives and other goals in mind
that are very motivated and in the right position to
do so.

Speaker 4 (01:28:56):
They are very motivated and at the moment, if you
don't don't challenge you, if you don't stand up for
what you want, those people are definitely ascendant at the moment.
I mean, like the right wing think tanks like Heritage
Foundation from the they have an ALEC American Legislatory Exchange
Council American Lands Council ALC. These people have been deeply

(01:29:20):
involved in the in the long term movement to take
away the American public lands from the as long as
I can my all my adult life. And these are
think tanks that are mostly you know there they call
themselves conservative. It's not conservative to take away the American
public lands, let me tell you that. Yeah, that's about

(01:29:43):
as radical an idea divesting the people of their own
land as I've ever heard. But they those the planks
of these think tanks. I'm doing air quotes. They think
best when somebody's given them money to chair, you pick
information and prove something that they want, but that they

(01:30:03):
already want to get. But they are ascendant at the moment.
And it is it is. It is our job as
American citizens and people who know what is at stake
to say no to the worst impulses. And even if
we voted for these folks, especially if people say no

(01:30:25):
to the especially if we vote right, yeah, I mean,
you didn't vote to divest yourself of the of your
hunting ground.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
And I think that that makes us that much more
influential and powerful in our ability to influence change, because
we can call these folks up and say, hey, buddy,
I voted for you, I'm voting for you. I support this, this,
and this, but on this one, you got it wrong.
And if you want my support the next time around,
or for your buddy who's running the next time or

(01:30:53):
whatever it is, you gotta change this. I'm on your team.
We're on your team. We want to support you. But
this is a deal, and we have the ear of
these people. They might not listen at all to the
left side of the aisle, but they will listen to us,
So we have a we have a huge opportunity there.

Speaker 4 (01:31:12):
I think that's true. You gotta be careful that they're
they're taking us for granted at this moment, and the
elections and stuff have kind of given people, the politicians
a complacent view of of of what will stand for. Really.
I mean they that that privatizing the public lands deal

(01:31:34):
was in the Republican platform in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
Yep, I remember, and.

Speaker 4 (01:31:41):
You know, everybody I know still voted, and I don't
know what they thought, right, Like you know Ryan Sinky
in Montwna, I actually did not support that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:31:54):
Whatever you think of representatives thinking, he didn't support that,
and and that was really good, I thought, And I
thought that was courageous of him to make that stand. Yeah,
So I think let's have more of that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
Yeah, I think that's that's the rally and cry I
think for us leaving here today is get ready to
get ready to re engage, get ready to stand up,
get ready to be that squeaky wheel and uh not
be complacent. So hell, I don't know when it will be,

(01:32:27):
but when whenever your book comes out next year, you
have a guaranteed appointment here on the wire Hunt podcast
to talk all about your book. I'll be recommending every
one of our listeners to pick up a copy. I
can't wait to read it myself. And uh, I thank
you for for everything you've shared with us here today
and all the all the wisdom and inspiration over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
Hell it's a great, great time. Man. I've told you
I was. I feel like you're the voice of your
particular generation at this moment on this subject, and you're
coming straight out of the hunting world, which is you
couldn't have a stronger base. Yeah, I mean, hunter controvationist

(01:33:11):
is a large part of why we have what we have.

Speaker 3 (01:33:14):
We got a hell of a legacy that we had
to hold up.

Speaker 4 (01:33:17):
Yeah, well finding dude, thank you hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
And that's going to do it for us today.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Appreciate you joining me here on the Wired to Hunt podcast.
Thanks for tuning in here as hell and I discussed
what is the beginning I think of an important set
of conversations that we are going to be continuing this
year and over the next handful of years, because we
are going to have some work to do, and I
believe and I trust that you're going to be joining

(01:33:46):
me in doing that work. So thanks for being here.
Thanks for checking out that Wild Country. If you have
not already read that book that I wrote a handful
of years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
It is the perfect way to get you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:55):
Up to speed on what's happening now and what we
might need to be preparing for in the future. So
thank you, appreciate you being a part of this community,
and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

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Host

Mark Kenyon

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