The Henry's Fork Wildlife Alliance (HFWA) is an affiliate of the Idaho Wildlife Federation (IWF) which in turn is a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) affiliate. Now the NWF has quite the support from corporate sponsors and partners such as Bank of America, General Motors, eDemocracy.us LLC, and Subaru to just name a few. One of purposes of these partnerships is to "support meaningful conservation programs". The NFW website lists their mission and strategic plan as:
Perhaps little known is the fact that the NWF was "a founding member of IUCN back in 1948". Interesting that this isn't mentioned in the NWF history. The IUCN stands for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature which historically has included a partnership with the United Nations (UN). There are several themes the IUCN focuses on, one of which is protected areas. NWF continues to be a member of the IUCN which can be found by typing their name in the search box, along with Yellowstone to Yukon. Just this year, NFW recognized the IUCN declaration of needing more action on wildlife conservation and are supporting the Recovering America's Wildlife Act, along with the IWF. This bill would provide funding for species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) conservation that is administered by state wildlife action plans such as through Idaho Fish & Game, which by the way was a federally required program for all states. The IUCN goal is protecting half of the earth for nature. Harvey Locke, co-founder of Yellowstone to Yukon and IUCN member, is promoting this goal through his work as strategic advisor to Yellowstone to Yukon, and their related partners such as NWF. It is difficult to understand the dichotomy between what IWF claims it supports such as hunting when everything they support is conservation related such as wildlife overpasses, keeping public lands with the federal government, even the designation of wilderness areas. Other than wanting to conserve and protect everything, where is the description of how these activities support hunting, it just references increasing wildlife numbers. Conserved and protected areas such as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) prohibit hunting or any other recreational activity. Just this year IWF recommended protection of chukar habitat, pronghorn, and a mule deer winter range in the Bureau of Land Management Four Rivers draft resource management plan. How does protection support hunting? In case of any legal entanglement, IWF has the financial backing and legal assistance of Advocates for the West, which defends land conservation. Idaho Fish & Game has a program, Access Yes!, that identifies access to public land, yet IWF supports trespassing over private property and a snitch program. Idaho has a trespass law that outlines protection of private property rights, yet IWF doesn't seem to understand those rights. It is not unreasonable for a private property owner to request their rights are protected. The issue doesn't seem to be about supporting hunting, but rather a attack on private property rights. Each of these organizations partner together because they hold the same beliefs. Protect, conserve, connectivity, support government control, and save wildlife for "future generations", all the while leaving our right to elected representation out of the formula. HFWA is associated with these groups and their objectives, and this is what they want for Island Park.
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Making Sense of It All
This blog will help you make sense out of all the information on the website, how it affects IP, our history, and how efforts continue to put IP into various forms of conservation status. Archives
May 2023
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