I grew up in eastern MT on a ranch where my parents allowed people to hunt on our land. We need to protect hunting opportunities for all Montanans, not carve out exceptions so that billionaires with thousands of acres of private land can privatize and get rich off of our public resources. Conservation is about how we protect public and private land from misuse, how we protect the quality of water in a world where it’s becoming more scarce, how we preserve access to the hunting and fishing places that our parents and grandparents took us to, and how we make sure Montana’s public lands remain open to all of us and that Big Sky Country does not turn into a playground for the rich. Congress has a vital role in making those things happen. Keeping public land public of course plays an important role in protecting land and water resources. We also need to assure that public lands are not managed to exclusively serve commercial and corporate interests. Public lands provide us with all sorts of benefits: wildlife habitat, opportunities for recreation, water quality protection, natural beauty. But it shouldn’t be just the dollars and jobs from commercial exploitation that drive our decisions about how we use public lands. We need leadership in Washington that will protect the public’s interest in public lands. Source: https://monicatranel.com/issues/ 7/25/2022
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