Anderson: Get politics out of Minnesota conservation — finally

Last week, I wrote about birders, bikers and hikers and how they’ve been getting a free ride in many instances on the backs of hunters (and anglers) who’ve borne the brunt of conservation funding in Minnesota.

I focused on the purchase and maintenance of the more than 1,500 state wildlife management areas (WMAs) in Minnesota, because in most instances they were bought with money contributed by hunters directly or indirectly.

The same is true for the state’s approximately 700 waterfowl production areas managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The state’s hunters and anglers also were the primary drivers behind the initial dedication of Minnesota’s lottery proceeds to the environment and to passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

Of the more than 230 commenters who weighed in on last week’s column, some agreed with the premise that everyone who benefits from Minnesota’s many outdoor opportunities should help pay to sustain them.

Others cited a litany of reasons why they shouldn’t have to pony up. Some said they already pay through the purchase of state park permits, while others noted they contribute to conservation through lottery ticket purchases and the fractional portion of the state sales tax that underwrites the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

All true, more or less.

The broader point of the column, however, was that regardless of who has paid, or continues to pay, for conservation of the state’s woods, waters, fields and wildlife — and the lifestyles they support — many of the state’s natural resource are at greater risk today than ever.

For more than a century, hunters and anglers have provided a significant counterweight to this degradation through their license and stamp purchases, self-imposed taxes and political influence.

But many of these sporting types are graying out, and unless replacements are found the downhill slide of the state’s resources and the outdoor opportunities they provide will accelerate.

Which is why I wrote last week that, “Only by expanding and organizing the number of people who care about conserving the state’s woods, waters and fields can Minnesotans ensure that their state resembles its current self in perpetuity."

The upshot is we’re all part of Minnesota’s conservation “problem,” as it were, and we’ll all be needed to fix it.

At issue isn’t whether we recycle as much as we should, or that we drive SUVs instead of electric vehicles — or drive electric vehicles instead of taking public transportation, and on and on.

These and other personal choices are and always will be a part of a free society, and their negative effect on the environment will lesson over time thanks to technology and increased public awareness.

The quandary instead is that too many of us think we support conservation because we participate in outdoor activities, when, in fact, thanks to our collective indifference to the way conservation is and especially isn’t practiced and delivered in the state, we’re part of its conservation problem.

This disparity between what we think and what we actually do is a classic example of cognitive dissonance, and each time hunters climb into a Ford “Expedition,” birders purchase a “Hawke Nature-Trek” spotting scope or hikers try on a “Mountain Hardware” jacket, advertisers and marketers reinforce our self images as supporters of the outdoors.

When in fact we are users of the outdoors.

Tony Amato is a professor of environmental history, among other subjects, at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minn.

“For many people, the ‘environment’ today is no longer about clean air and clean water,” Amato said. ”It’s often more about a set of experiences they expect to consume, whether at a park, nature area or wherever. They often don’t understand the threats that exist to these areas and the need to be involved in the issues of the day to preserve them. Many of these areas didn’t exist in the past and there’s no guarantee they’ll exist in the future. They’re not eternal."

Complicating Minnesota’s conservation challenges is the tight control over funding and policy the state’s governor and Legislature exert on the DNR.

This ensures the state’s primary public land and water protectors are held in check if their practices and advice conflict with the ambitions of farmers, timber producers and developers, among others.

Hunters, anglers, bikers, hikers and birders could rid, or at least diminish, Minnesota conservation of these and other political influences if they joined together to demand that legislators endorse the recommendations of the 15 member Conservation Legacy Council that Gov. Tim Pawlenty convened in 2006.

Declaring that, “All Minnesotans for all time have the inalienable right to clean water and air, to healthy forests and wetlands, to prairies and abundant wildlife,” the blue-ribbon citizen-legislator panel recommended that, “A citizen-based Conservation Commission should lead Minnesota’s conservation efforts, including strategic direction and oversight to the DNR.”

Great idea, a citizens commission, and one that all but a few states have already established.

Why hasn’t it happened in Minnesota?

Because Job No. 1 for many of the state’s officeholders is to ensure that resource conservation doesn’t interfere too much or too often with resource exploitation.

All Minnesotans should be able to earn livings commensurate with their efforts and ingenuity — no one disagrees with that. But when land, water and wildlife are put at risk — essentially, Minnesota’s core values — conservationists’ opinions should be heard.

Too often, that’s not happening.

Thus my callout last week to birders, bikers, hikers and other outdoor activists. Their enthusiasm is needed, along with that of hunters, anglers and others, to support new and better conservation practices in Minnesota.

This might include a program similar to those of other states that requires a “conservation license,” or a hunting or fishing license, to recreate on state lands and waters.

Or maybe not.

What’s more important, as the DNR’s longtime non-game program manager Carrol Henderson has said, is recognizing that, “there needs to be a conservation reckoning if Minnesotans are going to have the same outdoor opportunities in the future they have now.”

Ideas? Leave them in the comments section of this column.