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Healthy Working Landscapes, Hunting and Ecotourism: Is This a Sustainable Partnership?

September 2007 By William L. Bryan, Jr., PhD. Bozeman, Montana Co-Founder and Chairman Off the Beaten Path, LLC

Executive Director The Rural Landscape Institute

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I’m here to discuss with you whether hunting is an appropriate ecotourism activity in the context of sustainable working landscapes I am glad it is being debated today; it needs to be We all have a sense of the definition of ecotourism Working landscapes may be a new phase for some

Usually involves agriculture, open space, land stewardship, and sustainability - a concept gaining in popularity

Open space protection Viable small scale agriculture Diversity, stewardship, sustainability

The Nature Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, Land Trusts

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Then there is the issue of Hunting

How many here hunt or have someone in the immediate family who does?

Not here:

To debate hunting per se To promote the importance of subsistence hunting with indigenous populations (which I support) To defend trophy hunting as an eco-activity (it isn’t)

I want to discuss hunting in the context of

Sustainable working landscapes The economic viability of family scale production agriculture The protection of open space

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I accept the assumption that we as a people impact our natural resources and therefore we must practice land/resource stewardship as we strive toward a sustainable relationship between us and our environment.

We are as Dan Daggert says “Gardeners of Eden.�

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Given that assumption and the sobering fact that: Our most productive lands are being swallowed up by subdivisions and development That food production has been taken over by industrial agriculture That family farmers and ranchers are becoming endangered species That the rural / urban partnership is almost non-existent

Not viewed as that important by a 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation predominantly urban society

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These are the realities of the 21st Century Something has to change And to do so, we need a 21st Century “lens” with the concept of sustainability as the dominant filter

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Perhaps Agritourism can be a Solution Oriented Tool to: „

Help build a new rural / urban partnership focused on long-term goals of sustainable relationships between people and their environment

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OK, so how does hunting fit into this thinking?

Healthy landscapes usually mean excellent wildlife habitat and the possibility of abundant wildlife populations The predator issue – creates an imbalance Excess wildlife populations often lead to losses in forage and various agricultural crops

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In Montana up to 33 million dollars of forage a year goes to wildlife Up to 80% of big game harvested in Montana are taken on private land More elk than when Lewis and Clark went throughout our country Ungulates often viewed as a liability, not an asset

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Big Game and Upland Bird Populations Need to be seen as an asset Harvesting a certain percentage of ungulates each year could lead to:

Healthy habitats / ecosystems Better agricultural product yields An added revenue stream for family farms and ranches that help realize economic viability – that leads to continued good stewardship practices that leads to the sustainability of working landscapes.

Hunting in this context is an important ecotourism activity and a part of agritourism (agri-ecotourism) 10

Must remember the historic role sport hunting (and its resulting revenues) has played in wildlife enhancement and protection (Ex. Pittman Robertson Act) Must be mindful that a society so removed from the land is much more likely to produce hunters that don’t have, or understand, any notion of fair chase / hunter ethics „ Need for compulsory hunter education programs

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Hunting provides a critical connection to the natural world that has been lost in our modern, urban society Hunting populations are shrinking: 10% in last ten years to about 12.5 million And at the same time, our urban society has created huge wildlife imbalances The suburban garden of plenty for deer

Helena, MT example: Deer / car damage costs:

The bison population of Yellowstone These are not sustainable populations; land stewardship in these cases is found wanting 12