Happy Trails To You! A Farewell Message from Jon Schwedler

Editor's Note:  This is Jon Schwedler's last post for the Sierra Sportsmen blog, and we wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors. However, as Jon mentions below, there is still much work to be done, and we look forward to continuing this important program. Stay tuned to this blog for news and announcements in the days ahead. And if you'd like to keep up with our friend Jon, drop by his new digs.

Well, fellow sportsmen, the time has come for me to head on down the road.  Due to the needs of my young family I'm going to have to move on.  This is my last blog post here. 

I wish to sincerely thank you for your efforts in the support of fishing, hunting, and conservation.  I have received some outstanding and supportive feedback from you all on the Sierra Sportsmen effort-our work to bridge the perceived gap between "environmentalists" and "sportsmen."

As a member of Sierra Sportsmen, you "get it"- these two groups are not really different, and want the same things.  We know that some of the best (and first) conservationists are sportsmen, and that the work of environmentalists helps hunting and fishing.  Without healthy waters and lands none of us gets what we want. 

Thanks to you, Sierra Sportsmen has enjoyed some great successes:

• Hundreds of free fishing poles were distributed by the Sierra Club to kids wanting to learn to fish.
• Hundreds of you participated in our first Sierra Sportsmen photo contest. 
• The Yazoo Pumps project along the Mississippi River was eliminated by the Environmental Protection Agency, saving innumerable fish and waterfowl. 
• Colorado's Governor Ritter formally protested drilling on the Roan Plateau, one of Colorado's premier hunting and fishing areas.
• One of the great rivers of fly-fishing, Michigan's Au Sable, was protected from drilling.
• The Wyoming Range Legacy Act, which would protect more than 1 million acres of big-game and fish habitat from drilling, is working its way through Congress.
• Sierra Club volunteers and staff cleaned-up streams, taught kids to fish, and tore down fences in big-game habitat. 

Of course, it hasn't been all lollipops and sunshine.  We've still have many serious challenges to our country's fishing and hunting heritage:

• Climate change is altering the places we hunt and fish as we speak, usually not for the better.
• What would be the world's largest open-pit mine, Alaska's Pebble Mine, is being proposed smack-dab in the world's most productive salmon fishery, at Bristol Bay. 
• Recent "re-interpretations" of the Clean Water Act by the White House and the Army Corps of Engineers threaten to wipe out millions of acres of wetlands and streams for fish and wildlife. 
• Hyper-aggressive drilling for oil and gas is slicing up big-game habitat in the West, damaging elk, pronghorn, deer, and sage grouse populations (among others).
• In the East, the mining practice of mountain-top removal is wiping away productive forests, and clogging fisheries with sediment and toxic tailings. 

These are indeed serious problems, and they may seem insurmountable.  What can we do?

The answer is everything and anything, because the stakes are high-- can you imagine what it would be like to explain to your children why there are no more healthy places to fish and hunt?  What will our excuse be?  That we didn't try hard enough to leave them something? Not acceptable. 

We need to take on those who damage our American outdoor heritage without apology, without compromise, regardless how much they trivialize their damaging acts.  A death of a thousand cuts still results in a body bag. 

That said, I believe WE CAN win, WE CAN keep our great American outdoors healthy for everyone who enjoys it-hunters, anglers, hikers, bird-watchers, and the thousands of critters that live there.  I believe that socially and politically we have reached a trigger-point, that the public's awareness of the dire need to protect our environment has reached the majority. 

This trigger-point is even reflected now in the language of our political candidates on both sides- of course, now it is our job to hold them to those promises!

In the meantime, I hope you don't forget to spend some time outdoors, enjoying what the best country in the world has to offer, what we have been blessed with on this earth.

Happy trails,
Jon Schwedler