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    Florida may enshrine hunting and fishing by ‘traditional methods’ – but what are they?

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    On election day, Florida voters will decide whether to enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish in their state.Amendment 2, proposed by Republican state lawmaker Lauren Melo, seeks to “preserve traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife”.Much is at stake. If the amendment succeeds, hunting and fishing would be considered the primary – and legally protected – conservation methods in Florida. Both activities are a huge part of the state’s multibillion-dollar recreational tourism economy. As of 30 October, backers of amendment 2 had raised nearly $1.3m for the measure, far out-fundraising the amendment’s opponents.Lawyers, scientists and conservationists worry amendment 2’s vague language, particularly the passage about “traditional methods”, could supersede science-based wildlife management in unprecedented ways.“That language is open to applying chicanery,” said David Guest, a retired Earthjustice lawyer based in Florida. “Does that mean that you can use explosives [in the destructive practice called “blast fishing”]? I mean, what in the world is this?”Pushed by conservative-leaning organizations such as the National Rifle Association and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), these “sportsmen’s bills of rights” view hunting as a cultural tradition and are meant to counter proposals to limit hunting and fishing.View image in fullscreen“It’s a pre-emptive safeguard against the anti-sportsman agenda,” said Mark Lance, CSF’s south-eastern states senior director. The CSF and the the NRA apply that term to what they consider extremist animal-rights campaigns to end all hunting, epitomized by former Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle’s leadership.The CSF drafted language for many of the measures nationwide, including Florida’s, along with the International Order of T Roosevelt, a hunting advocacy group named after the former president and hunting enthusiast Theodore Roosevelt. The CSF is also fighting a Colorado proposal that would eliminate hunting for mountain lions.These campaigns to change constitutions have been effective at ballot boxes around the nation. Florida could become the 24th state and the last in the south-east to add hunting and fishing rights to its constitution. While Vermont was long the only state to constitutionally protect hunting and fishing rights – it did so for more than 200 years – these measures proliferated after Alabama residents approved one in 1996. To date, only one has failed, in Arizona. But in Guest’s analysis, “this is the one that’s the sloppiest” of other recent measures in states like North Carolina and Utah.Guest and Sierra Club Florida chapter director Susannah Randolph both told the Guardian that the amendment’s nebulous language, particularly the “traditional methods” part, could harm wildlife populations and conservation efforts. There is no legal definition of traditional methods in court, Guest said. Nor is it defined in the amendment.Advocates say this vagueness might enable worst-case-scenario possibilities, including use of steel-jaw leghold traps, which are considered cruel and outlawed in more than 100 countries; using hounds to hunt bears and other game, which is banned or restricted in several states; and more relaxed killing limits. A Florida Bar analysis also suggests that organized hunts are likely to become more common if the amendment passes. Others worry amendment 2 would backpedal on Florida’s 1995 gillnet ban, a constitutional amendment that outlawed commercial fishing nets that entangle marine mammals such as dolphins. Despite this concern, amendment 2 cannot repeal or impede the gillnet ban, Guest said, because both amendments can be applied in tandem.But it’s unclear how courts could interpret such language. Guest pointed out that, in Wisconsin, the constitutional right to hunt and fish was upheld to support wolf hunting after the species was delisted from the Endangered Species Act. Florida wildlife advocates fear the same reasoning would apply to the black bear. On the other hand, Ryan Byrne, a managing editor at the nonpartisan website Ballotpedia, noted that courts have decided states can still regulate hunting and fishing in previous lawsuits.Still, some Florida conservationists and activists think that amendment 2 could empower individuals to do what they please and ignore existing regulations. While the amendment does reiterate the authority of the state wildlife-management agency, the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC), the constitutional preference for hunting and fishing would mean there was no guarantee FWC’s authority would win out, said Devki Pancholi, a third-year University of Florida law student and vice-president of the local Animal Legal Defense Fund chapter. Courts will typically refer to the most recent amendment when resolving constitutional disputes.The amendment’s vagueness is strategic. A CSF document distributed at a National Rifle Association convention and obtained by the NoTo 2.org campaign suggested that “by using a vague term like ‘traditional methods,’ it will be up to state agencies to determine what they include in their season as ‘traditional methods’”, such as trapping. The NRA’s lobbying arm has also published recommended language for state constitutional amendments to protect the right to hunt and fish.Florida law already codifies hunting and fishing as statutory rights, which proponents of the constitutional measure argue can be easily reversed. Yet there have not been any significant attempts to outlaw hunting and fishing in the state.“In order to change the statutory right to fish and hunt in Florida, you would need 61 House reps and 21 state senators to vote … to make hunting and fishing illegal,” said Chuck O’Neal, chair of the NoTo2.org political action committee. “It’s never going to happen, not in this state.” Melo and the state senator Jason Brodeur, the Republican lawmakers who introduced the bill in 2023, did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.Still, Lance, the CSF south-east regional senior director, argues that even without direct criminalization attempts in Florida, threats exist on a national scale. “We want to be ahead of attacks to hunting and fishing in Florida before it’s too late,” he said.The bill’s supporters point to a failed 2021 Oregon ballot proposal that sought to redefine hunting and fishing as animal abuse as a leading example of nationwide threats.View image in fullscreen“That’s a backhanded way to try to regulate hunting and fishing,” said Lane Stephens, a lobbyist who represents the Southeastern Dog Hunters Association, among others.Stephens added that the attempt was aligned with the mission of the Humane Society, which contributed nearly $10,000 to the NoTo2.org campaign.“We don’t want [animal-rights activists] trying to run something in our constitution or in state law that would limit our abilities to hunt and fish,” Stephens said, adding that many of Florida’s incoming urban residents don’t understand or agree with the hunting and fishing heritage Floridians enjoy.He continued: “It’s up to FWC to decide when we have a season and what that season looks like.”But Pancholi, the law student, and others question some of the procedures behind the measure getting on the ballot and FWC’s involvement with it. The bill was fast-tracked through the state legislature, O’Neal pointed out, with fewer hearings in the statehouse and senate than usual. And the FWC, which is responsible for regulating fish and wildlife, may be the measure’s most significant supporter.In September, the FWC sent out a memo on official letterhead, written by chair Rodney Barreto. It directed those with questions about the amendment to a Yes on 2 campaign communications director. Barreto is also vice-chair of the Yes on 2 campaign and sits on the board of the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida, which contributed $250,000 to the Vote Yes on Amendment 2 political action committee. FWC commissioners Steven Hudson and Preston Farrior contributed $10,000 and $15,000, respectively, to the Yes on 2 campaign as well. Commissioners are gubernatorial appointees.According to Florida law, government agencies are required to provide public notice in a public meeting before formally endorsing a ballot measure, but FWC did not hold public discussions about its position before announcing its support.“From what I could tell, I wasn’t able to find any meeting notes,” Pancholi, the law student, said. Neither could the Guardian. If true, “that would be a violation of the law”, she added. FWC did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment by press time.Conservation and science at oddsYes on 2 supporters are united by a strong belief that hunters and anglers are the original conservationists.“Hunting is a means of conservation by which animal populations remain under control,” said Stephens. “We need to make decisions based on the science and the data, and not on emotions.”Yet scientists have argued that the amendment could do exactly the opposite, placing hunting and fishing higher than other management methods such as habitat restoration, raising vulnerable species in captivity for release, or “bag limits” that restrict the kind and number of animals people can kill or keep. Such an approach appears at odds with the basics of wildlife management, said Edward Camp, a professor of fisheries and aquaculture governance at the University of Florida.“Does it influence how the best management advice is selected?” Camp said. “That’s, I think, at the heart of the issue.”Amendment 2 may prioritize hunts as the solution to human-wildlife conflicts instead, pushing other scientific methods to the backseat. After a 2015 bear hunt killed nearly 300 bears over the span of just two days, for example, several Florida counties allocated money for bear-proof trash bins that helped reduce human-bear encounters.Guest, the environmental lawyer, predicts that “the focus will be more on consumption of wildlife and less on conservation”.Ballotpedia’s Byrne noted the widespread notion that ballot measures, regardless of topic, are sometimes “really just to stoke a cultural issue and try to affect turnout”.With a much-publicized abortion measure also on the ballot in Florida and increasingly politicized judiciaries, Guest said the sportsmen’s bills of right are part of a national movement to advance the political agenda of the far right.“The constitution is the social contract,” he said. “We should be more cautious in the way we write it.” More

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      California plan would give $100m to Indigenous leaders to buy ancestral lands

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      California plan would give $100m to Indigenous leaders to buy ancestral landsProposal is part of Gavin Newsom’s pledge to preserve one-third of the state’s land and coastal waters by 2030 Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed giving California’s Indigenous nations $100m so they can purchase and preserve their ancestral lands.The proposal is part of his pledge to make sure nearly one-third of California’s land and coastal waters are preserved by 2030. But rather than have the government do all of that, Newsom said Indigenous leaders should have a say in what lands get preserved.“We know that California Native peoples have always had an interdependent relations with land, waters, everything that makes up the state of California,” Newsom said. “Unfortunately we also know that the state has had a role in violently disrupting those relations.”‘It’s a powerful feeling’: the Indigenous American tribe helping to bring back buffaloRead moreThe money is one piece of Newsom’s $286.4bn budget proposal. The state legislature would have to approve the spending before it could happen.The funding would not function like a traditional state grant program, where the state decides who gets the money and how they can spend it. Instead, natural resources secretary Wade Crowfoot said the administration is “committed to developing a structure or a process where tribes are deciding where these funds are going”.“There’s so much that we need to learn, obviously, from the tribal communities about how to do this,” Crowfoot said. “We’ve disconnected ourselves from all the tribal ecological knowledge that we need to heal and care for the lands.”He added, “We heard loud and clear in our consultations with more than 70 different California Native American tribes a strong desire from tribal governments to play a leading role in restoration and conservation efforts that benefit tribal communities and honor their connections to the lands and waters.”The proposal comes amid a growing Land Back movement to return Indigenous homelands to the descendants of those who lived there for millennia before European settlers arrived.Aside from buying land, nations in California could also use the money for programs that address climate change and workforce development.Crowfoot spoke during a meeting of the California Truth & Healing Council, established by Newsom in 2019 to “clarify the record” of the “troubled relationship between tribes and the state”.Indigenous leaders were enthusiastic about Newsom’s proposal, but worried how it would work in practice. In some cases, nations have competing claims over the same land. Deciding who will get the money to purchase that land would be difficult.Kouslaa Kessler-Mata, a member of the Truth & Healing Council, said the state needed to have a policy in place to resolve those conflicts “so that we don’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, guess what? Right now, that land that you thought was in your ancestral territory is now being acquired by someone else.”Caleem Sisk, chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, noted some nations – like hers – are not recognized by the federal government and have few resources of other nations that are federally recognized.“We’re not in any position to really compete with them for a grant,” she said.Crowfoot said he did not have a “quick and easy answer” to some of the council’s concerns. He said ultimately the state will need “some sort of consultative body to help us shape this funding to be able to work through that”.Newsom signed an executive order in 2020 directing that 30% of California’s land and coastal waters be preserved by 2030. He has called that goal a “mandate”, saying it is important for California to reduce the effects of climate change.Crowfoot echoed that sentiment Friday, saying preserving land would allow more plants and soil to “actually absorb that pollution from the atmosphere and store it in the land”.“Nature is needed in this effort to combat climate change,” he said.Under Newsom’s budget proposal, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) would manage the new Indigenous funding commitment.This year, CNRA and its entities have awarded funds for various projects such as the Ocean Protection Council which funded $1.3m to the Wiyot Tribe for the purchase and restoration of 48 acres of its ancestral land. The funding also helps to strengthen coastal resiliency across the Humboldt coastline.Other CNRA-funded projects include youth access grants worth up to $773,000. The grants were distributed to the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians, and the Wiyot Tribe.In January, a group of ten nations residing on the northern California coast reclaimed parts of their ancestral land, including ancient redwoods. Save the Redwoods League, a nonprofit conservation group transferred more than 500 hectares (1,200 acres) on the Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.The group has since been responsible for protecting the land dubbed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, or “Fish Run Place” in the Sinkyone language.TopicsCaliforniaIndigenous peoplesConservationNative AmericansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden restores beloved national monuments, reversing Trump cuts

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      This land is your landJoe BidenBiden restores beloved national monuments, reversing Trump cutsRestoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante represents victory for advocates after protections were slashed Supported byAbout this contentHallie GoldenFri 8 Oct 2021 14.23 EDTLast modified on Fri 8 Oct 2021 15.11 EDTJoe Biden restored environmental protections on Friday to three national monuments and their vast expanse of vital ecosystems and sacred Indigenous spaces, reversing cuts made by Donald Trump.“These protections provide a bridge to our past, but they also build a bridge to a safer and more sustainable future,” said Biden. “One where we strengthen our economy and pass on a healthy planet to our children and our grandchildren.”Canada: win for anti-logging protesters as judge denies firm’s injunction bidRead moreBiden signed three proclamations that increased the boundaries of Bears Ears to 1.36m acres, while restoring the Grand Staircase-Escalante to 1.87m acres – both spanning large swaths of southern Utah. He also reinstated protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine, about 130 miles off the coast of New England, and extended limits on commercial fishing.The proclamations unraveled moves made by Trump, in which he slashed 85% of Bears Ears, leaving wide swaths of the site vulnerable to mining and other commercial activities. The Grand Staircase-Escalante was cut by about half. In 2020, Trump also stripped the environmental protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine, a marine monument home to more than 1,000 distinct species.After years of fighting back against cuts to the national monuments, the announcement served as a key victory for environmental and Indigenous groups. Many expressed their relief and gratitude.The interior secretary, Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, fought back tears as she applauded the administration’s actions for “bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice”.“This is a place that must be protected in perpetuity for every American and every child of the world,” she said, referring to Bears Ears.The monument, which was named for two striking buttes in south-eastern Utah, includes ancient cliff dwellings and sacred burial grounds. It is a place of worship and an important space for ceremonial activities, explained the Hopi Tribe vice-chairman, Clark Tenakhongva.“It’s on the same level as any kind of church or foundation or facility,” said Tenakhongva, who is also co-chair for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. “It’s very important to the lifeline of all nations and all people.”Staff attorney Matthew L Campbell for the Native American Rights Fund, which represents three of the tribes that have been involved in a years-long legal battle to protect Bears Ears, including the the Hopi Tribe, said he was very excited that this day had finally come.“The tribes have fought long and hard to protect this area,” he said. “It’s a sacred place that is intricately tied to the tribes’ histories and who they are as a people and it certainly deserves the protections and we’re glad and happy to see that those protections are going to be restored.”Shaun Chapoose, chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe business committee and a member of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said in a statement: “President Biden did the right thing restoring the Bears Ears national monument. For us the monument never went away. We will always return to these lands to manage and care for our sacred sites, waters and medicines.”Brad Sewell, senior director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s oceans program, said he was thrilled with the decision and the fact that it will help to preserve important marine wildlife and the deep-sea coral gardens within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine national monument.“We’re very happy for the country. This action will preserve an extraordinary place – our newest blue park for generations to come,” said Sewell.But some Republican leaders have said they are disappointed with the decision and the “winner-take-all mentality” it represented.In a statement released with other state leaders, Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, said: “The president’s decision to enlarge the monuments again is a tragic missed opportunity – it fails to provide certainty as well as the funding for law enforcement, research, and other protections which the monuments need and which only congressional action can offer.”During Biden’s campaign for the presidency, he had pledged to restore these monuments’ boundaries. Just after his inauguration, he signed an executive order requiring the interior department to review the monuments, and make a decision about whether it would be appropriate to restore them.Last spring, Haaland traveled to Utah to visit two of the monuments, and then later recommended Biden return them to their previous size and protections.TopicsJoe BidenThis land is your landUS politicsConservationnewsReuse this content More

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      Can red wolves come back from the brink of extinction again?

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      There are perhaps no more than 10 red wolves left in the wild, and they are all in just one place: North Carolina.
      It is an astonishing statistic for a species once hailed as undergoing the most successful reintroduction programme in the US, providing the blueprint for Yellowstone national park’s much-lauded grey wolf rewilding project.
      “The [red wolf] programme has almost entirely crumbled since I’ve been working here,” says Heather Clarkson, who works with the environmental charity Defenders of Wildlife. “It took about 20 years to get the programme to a strong place, that’s the really sad part. Because now it’s crashed. Disappointed barely scratches the surface.”
      In January, following legal action by conservation groups including Defenders of Wildlife, the district court for the eastern district of North Carolina ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which had cancelled the red wolf reintroduction programme, must resume the release of wolves into the wild. This month the USFWS presented a new plan to the judge and he has given the groups that launched the lawsuit two weeks to lodge any objections.
      Start of the rewilding scheme
      The plan to boost the number of red wolves in the wild began in 1973, when the USFWS set out to capture as many of the remaining wolves as possible to establish a captive-breeding programme.
      In 1980, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild. Seven years later the first reintroduction was made at the 60,000-hectare (152,000-acre) Alligator River national wildlife refuge in North Carolina. A breeding pair was released, and captive-bred pups were later fostered by the pack.
      At its peak, in 2011, there were as many as 130 red wolves back roaming the marshes, swamps and coastal prairies. Their recovery was the first time in the US that a large carnivore had been declared extinct in the wild and then successfully reintroduced. More

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      The animal species imperiled by Trump's war on the environment

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      Climate countdown

      The animal species imperiled by Trump’s war on the environment

      A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
      Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

      Despite a grim outlook for American biodiversity, Trump has lifted protections for at-risk animals as part of his aggressive rollback of environmental rules
      75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer
      by Paola Rosa-Aquino

      Main image:
      A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
      Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

      The prognosis for biodiversity on Earth is grim. According to a sobering report released by the United Nations last year, 1 million land and marine species across the globe are threatened with extinction – more than at any other period in human history.
      According to a recent study, about 20% of the countries in the world risk ecosystem collapse due to the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, a result of human activity in tandem with a warming climate. The United States is the ninth most at risk.
      Despite this desperate outlook, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive rollback of regulations designed to protect the environment, has lifted protections for America’s animals. It has shrunk several national monuments and opened up a huge amount of federal land for oil and gas drilling, coalmining and other industrial activities – actions that conservationists warn could imperil species whose numbers are already dwindling and that are core to the health of our ecosystems.
      Here we look at some of the animals most at risk from Trump’s rollbacks.
      Wolverines More