Re: BCWF- Grizzly Statement
"So to summarize, the BCWF is not strong enough to represent us going forward on hunting issues.
We need an organization that speaks for all hunters equally".
The question of whether the BCWF is the right vehicle to do what we want is a fair one. The answer depends on several issues. It's worth examining those issues because the BCWF has a lot going for it.
First, it has a fairly large membership, as you point out, but it also has a lot of organizational infrastructure. That's nothing to sneeze at. Creating that from scratch wouldn't be easy.
Second, we need to come together to decide 1) who we are and 2) what our goals are. You're suggesting an organization that represents FN hunters, non-FN resident hunters, and guided hunters in order to preserve our privilege/right to hunt. I'm not sure I'm 100% with you on that, so there's a concrete example of what I mean when I say who are "we" and what do we want.
Third, if we come together and decide who we are and what we want we need to test if the BCWF is the vehicle.
What I'd like to see is a body that can persuade the government as well as a significant portion of the population that we need to manage wildlife according to the North American Conservation Model, with the twin goals of protecting and enhancing our traditional right to hunt as well as maintaining and enhancing diverse and sustainable wildlife populations and landscapes.
What that would look like is a government that explicitly commits to scientific management of wildlife, and that holds wildlife as a public trust, not as a resource to generate revenue. When someone argues that we have to stop a grizzly hunt because its not moral, and because FNs regard the grizzly a certain way, and because the g-bear hunt is a proxy for something else, the public conversation would pit the two against each other: science vs. a political agenda. We've seen that in the climate change fight, and while both sides can be said to be pursuing an agenda there's no question that the role of science is well respected. When it comes to wildlife in BC we actually have people arguing that science is not the appropriate method for conservation decisions. This has to stop.
We would also see an honest accounting of the economic benefits of hunting, from the money spent on it to the value of the sustainable harvest, in conjunction with honest discussions about where our food comes from. Right now the economic benefits that are discussed and accepted are the benefits that accrue to a small group of (and I use the term generously) "stakeholders". This has to stop. There is only one valid stakeholder - the public. Everyone else claiming that label is merely a special interest group. Wildlife and the landscape belongs to all of us, regardless off race, wealth, gender or politics.
We would also see a recognition that man has been a hunter for 100s of thousands of years. While not every person in our long history has hunted, we all evolved as hunters and hunting is in our DNA.
There are more examples of practical applications of the NACM, protecting and enhancing our right to hunt, and protection and enhancement of a sustainable landscape with a healthy and diverse wildlife population, but I'll leave that for now.
We can argue with each other (and by each other in this sense I mean all British Columbians) over who will hold the levers of power and what they will then do with them. That's not the way to go. A better route is to harness the communication power of the internet (whether the educational power of youtube or the opinion influencing power of social media) as well as the crowd-sourcing power that we see today (whether to raise money or labour) and use that to change the culture so that we don't argue about things from a low information basis ("I support the g-bear trophy hunt ban because g-bears are endangered and trophy hunting is barbaric" to "All of us in this province manage wildlife so well that everyone who wants to, not just rich people who can pay, can see grizzlies, elk, moose and whatever, and everyone who wants to can hunt and fill their freezers with healthy, organic free range sustainable meat").
Again, is the BCWF the vehicle? I don't know. However, I will point out (and I'm not making any value judgements on anyone's politics - I'm just providing data): as early as 2009 Steve Bannon identified a problem that had to be solved, and he identified several obstacles to the solution. The first one he identified was the Republican Party. He said he had to either break it or take it over. If you don't know who Steve Bannon is, he's the rebel outside the box thinker who appears on stage with President elect Trump, unshaven, and without a tie. In less than a decade he's gone from an outsider with a goal and a plan to achieve it to being the guy behind the guy (which is probably why he's accused of everything short of being a child pornographer).
I'm not saying the BCWF has to be either broken or taken over. But clearly it's possible to re-focus it to make it more effective. I don't know enough of its members to say, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of them were in fact very supportive of making the sort of change I'm talking about. After all, who doesn't like clean air, clean water, wildlife, wild landscapes, and access to all four things?
Rob Chipman
"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders" - Ed Abbey
"Grown men do not need leaders" - also Ed Abbey
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Originally Posted by GoatGuy
