For the legion of sportsmen who make an expanding bridge between hunting and environmentalism, it is an unexpected conundrum.
Through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Bush administration proposes a sharp rollback in the Conservation Reserve Program, long hailed as the most successful habitat-protection initiative in the country.
Under the recommendation, general CRP enrollment would be halted for the next two years, a period when 4 million acres will lapse from the program. Further, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said he will consider releasing CRP contract holders at no penalty from their current agreements.
The anticipated reduction in CRP enrollment comes as a serious setback to a plan that currently includes 36 million acres, mostly in the Midwest. Devised as a way to pay farmers to set aside marginal lands, CRP has become a habitat bulwark for waterfowl nesting and the propagation of pheasant, quail, grouse and many nongame animal and bird species.
Now here’s the kicker, the thing that sets enviros to tossing and turning at night. The announced thrust behind the rollback is to make additional farm acres available to grow corn for the purpose of producing grain ethanol. Yep, that corn ethanol. The product that lowers pollution and makes the U.S. less dependent upon foreign oil, if you care about that sort of thing.
So what’s a body to do?
According to the National Wildlife Federation, there may be a separate way of looking at this, a perspective that allows hunters of conscience a tenable action position.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the administration to make it look as if they’re promoting ethanol,” said Julie Sibbing, a NWF spokesperson.
But the thing is, the proposed CRP withdrawal probably won’t make much contribution to the ethanol effort. In fact, corn growers generally aren’t excited about the 4 million or so acres that won’t be offered CRP re-enrollment.
The reason? Most of this land is of marginal production value and even less suited for a high-
demand crop such as corn.
“Why start out on conservation land when there’s so many places where corn production is such a standard thing?” Sibbing wondered.
A September 2006 study by the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee estimated that if CRP contracts are eliminated as they expire, more than 12.7 million acres – 37 percent of the total – will return to crop production by 2015.
A coalition of 16 outdoor and conservation groups called for an expansion, not reduction, of CRP, noting not only the benefit to wildlife but the addition of many millions of dollars in farm income.
In its appeal, the NWF repeated the adage, “Farm the best, protect the rest.” It’s an old mantra, but still has a ring to it.
Big game applications
Colorado’s 2007 big game brochures have hit the racks at sporting goods stores and Division of Wildlife offices across the state. The publication, with an outrageously large bull elk on the cover, contains applications for specified licenses for deer, elk, pronghorn, bear and moose. Application deadline is April 3. Hunters are reminded that the preference point banking experiment in place during 2006 won’t be applicable in 2007. It’ll be use-it-and-lose-it when you commit your points to an application this year.
