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Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.
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Speaker 2: This is Col’s Week in Review with Ryan cal Calahan. Here’s Cal.
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Speaker 1: Hey uh special edition Cal’s wee can review. Here in the New Year, I got an interview episode with the one and only Mark Kenyon. Mark and I are here on the edge of the new year, as are all of you, and we’re staring into the future and we’re gonna make some predictions on what that brings or what we can see what’s gonna happen. Uh, Mark, how uh how’s your new year treating you?
00:00:53
Speaker 2: I’m excited about it. There’s a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon, uh from me personally. I got some cool stuff with the family coming up, lots of you know, I don’t know. The new year just comes in with a lot of open runway, right. You can you can pivot, you can do new things, you can the possibilities open up. Even though really it’s it’s no different than two or three months ago, it just seems to because it’s a new year on the calendar. It just seems like naturally, hey, new stuff, try it out. So that that’s got me excited, I’d say.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: And did you put twenty twenty five to bed the way you wanted it to, Like give me like some peaks valleys of twenty twenty five.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I feel pretty good about twenty five. I wanted to, you know, do we’ve got like I’m kind of nerdy kale As you probably know, I’m very big on and actually making like explicit year goals broken down in different categories, and me and my wife like check in on them throughout the year. We have like we’ll go out for lunch and talk through, Hey, where are we at on this stuff? And I did pretty good on my twenty five goals. You know. One of them was, for example, to be a good pacer for Giannis on his hundred mile run. Checked that box. One of those goals was to finish my book manuscript on time, which I did so, feeling really good to have that. You know, there’s a bunch of additional revisions on that project that are still wrapping up right now, but felt very good to have that at least in the oven and well on its way to being fully baked. Some really fun outside adventures, as you know, I caught my first tarpin, which was amazing. You and I went to the Arctic, which was amazing. Had a lot of great wild adventures with my kids. So it was a good It was a good year, and I feel like there’s good momentum going into twenty six, so I don’t have a whole lot of complaints.
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Speaker 1: Nice dude, that sounds great. I’m pretty blown away by the I guess, like the checks and balances within the household, that’s pretty fascinating.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, if it has to be that way, because I am not good at those things naturally, Like I’m not good at keeping track of stuff naturally, I’m not good at I get tunnel vision. I get very very focused on one thing, which can often be work or something like that, and then I’ll lose track of all this other stuff. So over the last like ten plus years, you know, being married and then having kids, I’ve had to build systems to keep me on track to do those things. So like very focused with goals and like check ins. I have like this daily planner that every day I religiously map everything out, and every week map out the week. If I didn’t do that, I would be a complete mess. And I just luckily figured that out about myself early enough that I was able to build these really kind of nerdy processes that have that have held keep me on track.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: God, that’s amazing.
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Speaker 2: I don’t know tell my wife that. I don’t know if she’s as impressed as I am, but doing my best.
00:04:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, I guess it’s easy to judge if you don’t know what the real consequences are of.
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Speaker 2: Not having right true, Yeah, maybe I should revert back to twenty one year old mark for a few months and.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: See, yeah, give that for a little while.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yeah, look how much Look how much worse it could be.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: But yeah, so in the conservation space, right, we’ve seen like big, big movement and changes. Right, So, I guess folks will just have to believe me when I say, like this is like the facts of the case. This is a non partisan accounting of big changes to just like starting with agencies, right, like we have seen massive statf reductions and our workforce across our federal agencies, both kind of voluntary and involuntary. That could be a partisan statement, folks, good dig into all this. I suppose we are seeing a definite shift right now in a public position statement sort of way, as in the digging hasn’t started to fire up. I want to say, like reignite, but ignite in other areas, a new age of like extractive industry centered around precious metals and oil and gas. Absolutely, So like when we talk about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that’s part of that conversation. Ad that’s part of that conversation. But also offshore oil and gas all around the country, right, and a loosening of the regulatory framework to enable that type of industry to get up and moving as fast as possible.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: In particular and top of my mind, right, like Waters of the United States wotas. This is like your classic political football of tightening and loosening of the interpretation and language of waters of the United States. This is a huge one for sports mine.
00:06:49
Speaker 3: Because it enables those who would want to alter, drain, pave over, plow under intermittent wetland ones.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and some people that don’t know, sorry to interrupt, Yeah, Jay, I was just going to say for people that don’t know, this is this is a part of the Clean Water Act. This is this is a portion of that interpretation of a part of that. So this is you know, I think the Clean Water Act is something that everybody knows and realizes like, oh, that’s an important thing. When they hear waters of the US, they might not realize that that fits into this bigger, more widely known piece of important you know, environmental legislation. So sorry, carry on, just wanted to throw that out there.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: No, I mean, the the history is always important, right because I feel like I keep saying like, we’re at an inflection point right now, and we’re here because people have short memories and they’ve forgotten why these the regulatory frameworks and the protections were put into place in the first place. Right, So, so if you go back into again, not that long ago, but the sixties, there was a culmination of bad things happening in the natural world that had real serious effects on the health of American citizens. And one of those things was we had a real dirty water supply carrying a lot of chemicals de yep, yep, high cancer rates. So the Clean Water Act was kind of birthed out of that inflection point. Then I guess the list can go on. We still don’t have a new farm bill. We are seeing a lack of funding, either in the actual physical cutting of the check or the cutting of the budget for again, a lot of these processes protections across our private and public land once we started talking about about the farm bill, So that’s kind of where we’re at. And then you throw in this huge curveball of a group of people who want to just sell off our public lands, who have really been emboldened here in the last eighteen months. They were there before, but the political wins and the timing seemed right for them to shoot their shot.
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Speaker 2: And these folks increasingly are in positions of influence too.
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Speaker 1: Yes, So one of those things that is knocking on our door here at the beginning of the year is the potential Oh, I guess he’s already nominated Steve Pearce for director of the BLM two hundred and forty million acres some I’ve talked about quite a bit. I feel like the hunting community is uniquely positioned to on behalf of BLM lands because so much awesome, awesome outdoor stuff happens on Bureau of Land Management lands for a number of communities, but I feel like hunters are the ones that are uniquely positioned to speak on behalf of the places that quote unquote don’t have anything out there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we’re one of the few that know that that’s not the case.
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Speaker 1: Right. So Steve Pierce, he’s got, as you would normally see, a deep background in extracted industry, oil and gas. That isn’t the concerning thing. The concerning thing is that he has been an outspoken proponent of selling off all of America’s public lands. Doesn’t think we should have public land. And this cat is potentially shortly going to be running the Bureau of Land Management head overseer two hundred and forty million acres.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we’re gonna I mean, it sounds like it’s it’s quite likely he will be approved, right, and if that happens, then it’s it’s gonna be on probably, like you said, the hunting and fishing community to really to really be loud about making sure that whatever actions he takes don’t follow that previous pathway that he’s you know, shown with his actions, the kinds of priorities he has to your point. So, yeah, I mean, this was this was similar to last you know, back in twenty sixteen or seventeen or whenever it was, when William Perry Penley was nominated to head up the BLM. He was the same kind of guy, right, he was he was explicitly publicly against public lands, wanted to transfer them or sell them, and and now here we are again. So the Mark Twain once said, what the history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. And I’d say, we’re living that right now.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: In theory, so the WPP he was an acting director and he never went through his confirmation process. In theory, Steve Pearce will go through a confirmation process which is like an excruciating public job interview where our United States Senators have the opportunity to ask this guy, as you would say, in front of God and everybody, what his intentions are, why he’s fit or not fit for the position. And there’s this possibility of like setting the tone, expectation and future accountability in this process. So even if mister Pierce is not the best guy for the job, like I can’t fathom, like looking amongst like the BHA membership, we have lots of people who work in extractive industry oil and gas, and on their weeks off and weekends off, they are hunting and fishing and their conservation minded people because that’s where they spend their herd ear and dough is going out and doing that stuff. So I know you can be an excellent steward of the land and to be able to oil and gas and the extractive industries, right like that. That’s that’s something that is possible. How we can have somebody who’s in charge of two hundred and forty million acres of like phenomenal hunting opportunity who doesn’t hunt. That just seems like a bad choice to me. So, like you’re a well rounded steward of the land.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, so curious what you’ve heard or what you think about the likelihood of his confirmation. I’ve heard that it seems like pretty much impossible that it could be stopped. But rumor has it that there’s been work being done to try to get some kind of promises or some kind of assurances that transfers and sales will be off the table in exchange for their support of him. This is just things i’ve heard. Have you heard anything like this? Do you do you have any sense if there’s a movement to somehow not confirm him, or if it’s if it’s going to happen and we have to more so, you know, depend on assurances and or public opposition to keep that kind of thing from going on.
00:14:41
Speaker 1: I believe that if this confirmation process happens, that those are the types of questions that are going to be asked in order to get those assurances out in public. Yeah, and that’s where the accountability piece of the puzzle goes in. Now, if you think about, like what is happening with Mike Lee, for instance, this guy is becoming like a foreign on everybody’s side. He’s slowing processes down. He’s adding amendments at the eleventh hour to things that Republicans and Democrats alike have worked on to get across the line in a timely fashion. And this guy’s like throwing a wrench in the gears over his personal agenda. There’s only like so much of that that can happen without like pure gridlock, deadlock across the machinations of government. Right. So, from like maybe it’s a little altruistic, but from like a pragmatic point of view, that’s got to be a real concern with our sitting senators and in Congress people rights, Like we got to be able to get some things done if we keep putting people in positions of power, be it the chair of the Senate Energy and Rent Natural Resources committee that are going to work against the best interest of the American people, and we’re constantly called out. Our offices are shut down from phone calls and emails to stop the next stupid thing people are doing. That’s not going to work. We’re not going to get anything done. So I would hope that, yes, those conversations are happening.
00:16:30
Speaker 2: And I guess that, you know, is another reason why we do need to continue the calls, the pressure throughout to make sure that that to make sure that pan is hot, you know what I mean, keep the pressure, keep the heat on the seat.
00:16:47
Speaker 1: To see accountability. Yeah, and I think you know, like one thing I’d like people to do, and I’ve been encouraging over the last couple of podcasts, is I think you need to write your senator and say, Hey, this confirmation hearing is coming up, I need you to ask this question, right, like, those are your public lands, this big job interviews coming up? What should the boss of those public lands be asked again in front of God and everybody. Yeah, I think that’s a great, great a foot to start on.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree, that’s you know, something you told me earlier this year and I’m sure you I know You’ve said this many times on the podcast too, but it’s it’s just the consistency of this kind of message too, you know, checking in every week or a couple of times a month, or you know, not making our letters or our phone calls to our lawmakers a one time thing, but a consistent touch point I think is so important today, maybe more than ever, because we’re being flooded with different things all the time, and I think we do have to keep this accountability front top of mind for these folks so that it doesn’t become oh, well, on this one issue, I happen to get a million phone calls and emails and it was a big deal. But instead it’s every week, all year around. There are thousands of people saying that this set of issues matters to them, over and over and over. That is the level of valume. I think we need these days to break through all the rest of the noise and all the other chaos going on in politics for this set of issues. It seems like that’s where things need to be now.
00:18:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don’t have to be into politics, You just got to be into the policy because the policy is going to affect you.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true, there’s a lot going on. There’s there’s so many you know, when you tease this up to me. The other day, I started thinking, you know, trying to think through predictions for the new year, and there’s it’s a long list of things that might be coming down the pipe, right there’s a bunch of concerning possibilities that there’s also a bunch of things that might be opportunities. But we’re living in a very like the velocity of possible change is really extreme right now. And I don’t know if that’s dramatically different than it was twenty years ago, but it sure feels like it’s a different place now.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the pace of things is you know, cranked up to eleven. And you know, the system set up to where we have people who it is their full time job to be out there representing us, but it’s up to us to make sure they’re doing that. So it can’t be hands off. You know. The message that I’m not going to get tired of saying is that everything we have right now is here because we demand that it be here. It’s not it’s not luck, it’s not happenstance like these are deliberate choices to say, we demand that these things remain on the landscape and we have access to them. It’s better for us as a nation to have robust wildlife access to them. Yeah, healthy public lands access to them. Yeah. Man, it’s a it’s an inflection point. Mark. Do you have a prediction? Did you come up with something?
00:20:37
Speaker 2: I’ve got all sorts of things that are possibilities. I don’t want to I don’t want to necessarily go so far as to say that I predict something, but I would say these are possibilities that I would throw out there. And there’s so much it’s easy to get stuck in the h This guy’s going to want to solve our lands, this thing, this protection is destroyed, or this you know, piece of important regulation is going to be removed. Right, It’s easy to fall into the the drain of doom, the spiral of doom. So I’m going to predict slash throw out a couple of positive possibilities first if if you’re game for that, and then we can talk through some other things. But I think there is possibility for some good things to come about this next year, in particular because it’s the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of America, and there’s going to be all sorts of celebration around that, all sorts of pageanty pageantry. Yeah, that’s the right word, pageantry. And there’s going to be people in positions within the government who want to have reasons to celebrate and to say, hey, look at the good stuff we’re doing. So because of that, we might be able to get some actual good things for wildlife and wild place is done by way of that, you know. So, for example, the funding for the maintenance backlog for National Park Service lands and other public LANs that got approved in the Grand American Outdoors Act, that has got to get or that’s coming up for reauthorization this coming year. And so that does seem and it sounds that there’s some momentum and possibility for that to get reauthorized and get maybe even increased funding for that maintenance backlog. That’s the Legacy Restoration Fund reauthorization, So that I think could happen. That would be a good thing. There’s a lot of momentum around wildlife crossings. That’s something that has bipartisan support. Right when Zinke was the Secretary of Interior during the first Trump administration, he made that secretarial order that supported these programs. Then during the Biden administration there was funding allocated towards the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Project. Now there have been bills, as I know you’ve talked about in the House and now in the Senate too more recently, looking to continue that funding and increase that funding and those grant programs into the future. So that would get dollars for you know, wildlife crossing projects, or building overpasses, underpasses, things to keep habitat connected, things to keep migration routes viable, and all that stuff seems to have Biparson support. So even today, in the strange space we’re in, I think we could get support from a majority Republican Congress on some of that stuff. Possibly that could be really good. You know, this one’s a little bit harder, but I do think that there’s some possibility. I think that the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act might get reintroduced this year and have a little bit of momentum behind it. That’s something that would help get dollars to our state wildlife agencies to help them deal with you know, especially endangered and threatened species and developing plan and executing on plans to keep those critters off the Endangered Species list. So we know that the Endangered Species Act is sometimes controversial for the right side of the aisle, there’s lots of ways and ideas for reforming it. I think the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act is a great way to address you know, for people who have an issue with the ESA, the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act is a great way to address some of those concerns by say, hey, let’s not put other new species on the ESA. Let’s not create all the headaches that the EASA does. Let’s deal with the problem way before we get to that point, by actually having some smart ways to fund these programs at the state level, at the local level, to deal with those problems so that the federal government doesn’t doesn’t have to do that. So that could be a really big thing. And if that gets reintroduced, like I’m hearing it might, that could be a good thing. So those are you know, three four positives that I hope I think could come about in the next year.
00:25:03
Speaker 4: And the I almost wish the spin wasn’t endangered species oriented, right, It’s like none of these things exist in a vacuum unless you’re talking about like the desert pupfish that.
00:25:21
Speaker 1: Lives in life right event out there, and it’s like god knows why it’s there, but it is. But by and large, state by state, something that’s going to benefit an endangered species is going to benefit all the species around it.
00:25:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then also it you know, if the state has to use their limited funds on that stuff, that means those are funds not used on mule deer restoration or habitat work or something else. Right, if instead we had this significant additional funding that did help with those bigger habitat issues and everything that all of a sudden that freeze up resources for the critters that we are, you know, more directly excited about. So so yeah, it’s it’s really just a Good for All Wildlife Act.
00:26:15
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, exactly. Yeah, I mean good habitat right, Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: That’s that’s the name of the game. So those are some of the those are some of the positive things I think are possible the coming year. You want me to throw out a couple of my predictions for some some more defensive things we need to be aware of. Sure, Yeah, I’ll just keep rolling.
00:26:39
Speaker 1: I mean I think you know, it’s it, Uh, the things that aren’t like rosy predictions. I think you know. My response is always like, but the community is going to unify around those things and that will be a positive.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think, you know, looking back on twenty five, everybody looks at what happened around the one big beautiful bill and the public land sale opposition as this huge shining light of positivity, and like, hey, we rallied, we came together, we unified, from hunt to tree hugger, we all stood up. So everyone that I’ve talked to is like, hey, how do we bottle that up and do that again on the next big thing? So that gives me hope. It shows that we can do it. It shows that that is possible. It shows that it can make a difference. But it also shows you know, you know, if we look at that bill and just like the parts of it that are relevant to honey and fishing, we stopped the public land sale, a couple other of the other bad things were pulled out, but then you know, there were some things that are concerning that did slip through. We can’t stop it all, so there’s work to be done, for sure. So some of those things keep an eye out four in twenty six would be a couple of those pieces that were in the One Big Beautiful Bill at one point but got pulled, such as the Ambler Road, which you know basically is getting more and more of the roadblocks removed to actually happen, all right. Secretary of Interior Burgham said that, you know, they might even be breaking ground early in twenty twenty six to actually build the thing, but I think there’s probably going to be either legal challenges or other kind of process oriented speed bumps that might lead to that getting stalled out. And I think that’s one thing that if we care about, you know, if we as hunters and anglers care about the future of the Brooks Range and kind of this pinnacle of wildness in America, that’s that’s one worth really continuing to advocate for, continuing to stand up for, continuing to speak for. You know, when I think of the like the the the imagination of the American hunter and angler, and like the peak of what that dream is, it’s it’s the Brooks Range. It’s to ask an experience that you know, maybe it’s a once in a lifetime extremely special thing to do that most of us don’t get to do very often, but it’s something that is so powerful just knowing it’s still there, that we have someplace like that, and so what the Ambler Road could do to that dream is pretty serious and concerning. And so that’s something that I think we as a community are going to have to stay up on and maintain that point of contact on because that’s that’s a really big one that has a lot of momentum. The boundary waters right, the Twin Metals mind, we’ve been talking about for years and years and years, and as I know your listeners already know that has been signaled from the administration that they want to get those leases opened again and they want to open things up for that to move forward. There was a tweet or something this summer from the Secretary of Agriculture saying that they want to move forward on that, but we have still not got and the official nothing has officially been done yet, so we don’t know how that’s going to be done or how they’re going to, you know, try to make that happen. So that’s likely going to come out in twenty twenty six, you know, from what I understand, it sounds like and it seems like they are trying to make sure that all of their te’s are crossed and all their eyes are dotted in whatever way they plan to go about this so that it can actually happen. They’re doing it smart. And so for those of us who would rather that mind not be placed right on the edge of the boundery waters in the very water logged ecosystem where water pollution would be really detrimental, that’s something we’ve got to pay attention to. I think that’s probably going to come to a head this coming year. That’s a big one.
00:30:47
Speaker 1: I can wild, right, yes, like, and you know, we’ll see what we ultimately can make happen on the public lands rule, where the idea there is to bring up the ecosystem services that lands naturally provide to an on par ish level. Yeah, with the extractive benefits will call them that those lands provide.
00:31:26
Speaker 2: YEP.
00:31:27
Speaker 1: One of the things is just like blatantly obvious to me, right, Like, you know, I’m a guy who got it. I think a D minus and macroeconomics, University of Montana during my short stint, there is yet supply and demand the amount of like truly wild places that we have. That acreage is going down every single year. The value therefore is going up right at an exponential rate. So at what point we were just talking about capital W wilderness, right and WSAs and how wilderness study areas. Which part of the idea of having a wilderness study area is that is an area we’re going to put on hold to maybe become a capital W wilderness at some point. It’s kind of a middle ground for a lot of things, really, the WSA. But since a lot of those things were created in the sixties, there is a significant amount of that acreage all across the board that no longer fits the definition of capital W wilderness. Like the characteristics unfortunately just aren’t there anymore. We waited too long, So like there’s real examples of this stuff slipping away before our eyes. Yeah, but therefore the remaining acreage as that do fit that capital W are much more valuable.
00:33:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, it’s not a renewable resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. And uh, if we keep it around, though, the returns are renewable and perpetual, both you know, the ecosystem services like you talked about, and then the economies that live you know by way of those landscapes. Uh, every year, it seems like we’re getting more and more data that’s showing this very tangible economic impact to rural communities, to the nation as a whole, to you know, to to the the tax dollars coming back to the government, even through recreation economies and public land support economies. It’s it’s no joke, it’s it’s really serious dollars when you look at that. So there’s there’s a whole lot of ways that these landscapes are really important financially, really important. Of course we all know from like a lifestyle approach, of course, So there’s a there’s a really really strong argument to keeping these things around and being smart about how we’re going to do development, be smart about how we’re going to use them, and remembering to your point, they’re not making any more of it.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like if your idea is that America is going to last and thrive in perpetuity, then you do keep these things in mind. It’s like, we got a great nation. If we’re going to plan on having a great nation in the future, we’ve got to look at these foundational bedrocks of what makes this nation great. And like bare minimum, you need clean water and clean air to have a healthy population, right, you need soil health that creates food to have a healthy population. I think there’s a huge argument that if you want to be serious about national defense, we better understand and take stock of our ability to create clean water, clean air, and grill food.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, maybe my biggest prediction than cal as we’re talking through this, the thing that I’m seeing and that I’m hoping for and I’m starting to really see percolate up from the ground, is this across the board realization of what you are saying there and what we’ve been talking here, which is that this stuff is foundational to who we are as Americans. This stuff really matters to our daily lives. This stuff matters to our nation’s economy, It matters to our defense, It matters to our sense of self. And that is not a Democrat thing, that is not a Republican thing. That’s just an American thing. And so I do feel like this summer we started seeing and I think it’s continuing now, this realization that we can stand with our fellow Americans, whether they live in New York City or New Hampshire or Nevada, and say, hey, we care about this stuff for these reasons, and even if I voted for you, I am not on board with this thing. Or maybe I didn’t vote for you, and I support you on this other thing, but not this one. And I think this past summer showed a lot of people that yes, we still have some influence on these things. Yes we can still be heard, and I do think in twenty twenty six that will continue. I think we’re going to see more of this bipartisan movement to stand up for these things that matter. I think there is more support on both sides of the aisle, at least in the general public, to try to make this stuff bipartisan again and to try to stand up for these things that matter to you, whether you are a hunter or a tree hugger, an angler, or a birdwatcher. I think that trend is going to continue. I think we’re going to continue to find our footing and our voices, and I think that next year and the year after that and the year after that, our politicians are going to start getting the message little by little because we’re enforcement too.
00:37:02
Speaker 1: There you have. Twenty twenty six is gonna be a great year, kick great year, so long as you demand it. Okay, So there you have it. Twenty twenty six is going to be a great year full of challenges, but each of those challenges is going to bring with it great opportunity. I also, like, I do feel very optimistic, right, Like, we know that these places are incredibly valuable that they are, Like I think for the rank and file American they just can’t imagine a life without public lands, public wildlife, access to those things. The challenge is getting those people to speak up and weigh in and be involved. So, like, looking back to that reconciliation fight is something that we’re going to be constantly doing because it was it shouldn’t be like understated or swept under the rug. It was a huge pivotal moment and you’re right, it went from across all parts of the spectrum. And the long term goal here, the big win is making these things truly nonpartisan, like it is. It is an area in which we’re truly working on behalf of the interests of the American people in those things that we already talked about, clean water, clean air, abundant wildlife, great soil, health, the things that make people on this continent healthy and happy.
00:38:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there’s there are debates to be had on how that plays out on the ground, right, I mean, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with us having different opinions on how to do these things, how to execute, how to keep these things around, how to make sure these places and these animals and these opportunities flourish. But let’s make sure we’re all in the arena trying to make those angles happen. If we want to take different approaches, fine, let’s debate, let’s discuss, let’s work on that, but let’s just make sure we’re pointing in the right direction, which is you know, I think what we’re talking about here, So hopefully that happens.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: And so like, what is your plan of attack then for the for the new year, Like, how are you going to be involved? It’s great quest strategy.
00:39:32
Speaker 2: Well, you know, with you moving over to BHA, that is opening some space for me to step in and help continue your work at Mediator on the conservation side. So I think it’s I think I’m okay to say that I will be doing more on this front within the Mediator ecosystem. That’s it’s not you know, we’re still figuring out exactly what that looks like, but I’m I’m certainly personal and meet EAT organizationally is going to continue to find opportunities to step up and lead on this front because I think any kind of movement towards making conservation and the protection of public lands and the you know, working towards a better future for fish and wildlife, all these things, all of that takes a lot of different types of people and organizations and groups to make any of that come to life, right, It takes the individual, but then it also takes the collective and to get collective effort to get what we saw this past summer, you have to have leadership and you have to have scale. And I think that’s where an organization like meetat or that’s where nonprofits like backcountry Hunters and Anglers, I think that’s where those types of groups can really step up and help kind of prime the prime the situation for all the individuals to step in and do that kind of stuff. So we’re going to continue, of course, to support what you’re doing with with the podcast. We’re going to continue to build more content. I think I think one of the ideas is to continue to kind of expand our expand the terrain of where and how we talk about this kind of stuff. I’ve always loved with your videos, Calee, how how you’ve really worked to explore these kinds of topics but doing it in in a fun and interesting way. So how do we how do we build off of that? How do we do more like that? How do we as a company as mediator this community of people, how do we you know, educate the honey and fishing audience about what’s going on and why it’s relevant. But then also how do we continue to actually like activate, So again continuing and building off of what you’ve done, is how do we how do we tackle something like the Ambler road issue in a big, concerted way. How do we say, Hey, this is something that really matters to our community, and we’re going to speak out about it and we’re going to do something, whether it’s Ambler or the boundary waters or the public land sale or you know, supporting something like the wildlife crossings bills or anything like that. I’m personally trying to find ways to figure out, like, how do I help on an individual level by doing all the things we’ve talked about, making the phone calls, chatting and developing relationships. Of course, sending the email, sign the petitions, all that, But then so how do I work as an individual and then how do I help kind of lift up organizations or groups that can build that collective Because I think, you know, this is something I’m actually writing about right now. Cal in this book I’m trying to wrap up, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking through, you know, how do you actually make a difference on any of this stuff. There’s like so many different individual issues, so many different individual things that could impact hunting or fishing or specifically salmon or mountain lions or trout or mule deer, whatever your thing is. Right, There’s there’s so many different specific challenges and opportunities. But what’s what’s like the framework we need to tackle any one of these? And I was I was on a run this morning, and I’m actually going to be like, this will be this is one of the big ideas that I’m framing the book around. But I think what I’ve realized is that rather than trying to figure out the specific like patch to fix the hole in the boat, we just need to get better at training boat builders who can tackle whatever seas are coming right because there’s going to be some new challenge a year from now. Like we’re trying to make predictions right now, but who knows what it will be in two years or five years or ten years. The seas might be rough or they might be easy. We need to know how to build a boat that can navigate whatever the situation might be. And I think to continue this kind of metaphor that I’m you know, figuring out for myself as I speak this out, but I think that the key to being a boat builder, of a conservation boat builder in this case, is to learn how to operate on that individual level and the collective level and what does that mean? And so that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I think that’s what we as hunters and anglers are figuring out, is like what can we do on a day to day basis in our daily lives, and then what can we do to get lots of people to do something so that we can break through the noise as we were talking about earlier, so that we can actually have heat on these decision makers so they can recognize what we’re talking about matters that what we talk about as a political implication for them and that this stuff can be done. So that’s a long and winding explanation of how I’m thinking about this right now, what it’s actually going to look like on the ground over the next year that I’m still figuring out. But I’m excited. I’m excited to be able to do this kind of stuff, to think about these types of things because it’s it’s what you and I love. It’s what the listeners of this podcast love. We love these outdoor places, we love these hunts and fishing trips and public lands and wildlife. It’s it’s the stuff that brings so much joy to our lives, and so it gets me out of bed in the morning to think that maybe I can hopefully make some small positive difference and keeping all that around, that’s what I’m thinking about.
00:45:35
Speaker 1: To me, it’s like the simplest way to accomplish what you’re talking about, right is like it’s just another like extension, although it can’t be thought of as an extension of but it’s part of the responsible use package. You can’t go out and storytell at this point in the game and expose plays to media without also embedding into that story like a responsible use PSA in there, right, like we can love places to death, and I think that is something that people can wrap their heads around. Is like whether you’re talking about like I think of where the oil and gas industry started versus where it is right now. The size of the footprint, the remediation techniques, the environmental impact is much less than it has ever been when it is done responsibly, like that has its own responsible use practice. And all of these outdoor cultures, when you break them into segments, they all have their responsible u uh, you know, ethos or or rules to follow right where it’s recreational shooting on public land, right like pick up your brass, go pick up your targets, and pick up other people’s brass and targets if you have to. But once we get that responsible use ethos like embedded into all of these communities as just it’s part and parcel of what you do, then like we were, we’re winning this fight. Like then it’s an upfront to all people. At the same time, when somebody steps out of that responsible use line of thinking.
00:47:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it’s almost like a shift in in the mindset that we bring to I think sometimes I’ll just speak to my you know, my own personal life. I think for a while I came to hunting and fishing from like a consumer mindset. I came to it like, I want to get this out of it. I want to go out there. I want to kill a deer. I want to go out there and catch a bunch of fish. I want to go out out there and fill my freezer. I want I have a lot of fun. And it was just like, how do I get that? I want to get get, take, take, take. And then at some point that mindset and relationship shifted to more of an ownership mindset, to where I recognized that if I want to enjoy this asset, I guess we’ll call it this thing that I want to have some kind of ownership stake in that that also comes with the responsibility to use it responsibly, to steward it, to make sure that I’m putting back in more than I take out. And I think that is something that has been talked about for decades by people, but now it is more important than ever, I think because of you know what you mentioned earlier, the fact that these open space and wildlife and public lands, all of these things are being pressured from so many different directions to a greater degree than ever before. There’s so many different pressures that, just like modern life, are placing on these wild things that we can’t just talk about that anymore. It actually has to play out in real life for any of the stuff to have a chance to be around in twenty thirty forty years. And so yeah, I think that the days of buying a hunting license and then going out there and take take take, I don’t think that’s going to be viable for much longer. I think it’s really going to require, you know, having this ownership stake in it and recognizing, hey man, I got to I got to keep this thing around. I’ve got to put something into it too. And that’s going to look different for everybody, and it’s gonna happen at different times for everybody. But I do think that that is a growing awareness within our community, and not just our committity. I also think like some folks in the general outdoor recreation space are more and more picking up on that too. I’m seeing and hearing more folks in that world realizing like, oh you know what, Yeah, when I go slashing down a track when on my mountain bike, that does make an impact. I am using these places. This guy, you know, climbing up some rock face. They’re thinking about and realizing, oh yeah, okay, we are making an impact and we’ve got to do something to keep this stuff around. And so I do think that slowly but surely, we’re getting closer to that critical mass where there’s a lot of people that have a personal connection with these places and these resources. We’re all slowly realizing, Okay, we need to do something to make sure these places are around. And now we are seeing firsthand every day now illustrations of how important it is to start actually taking that action, because if you don’t, stuff like the summer’s public land sale proposition or other things like it, that stuff could become reality.
00:50:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. Yeah. It’s like you don’t understand how important food is until you’re out of it, right, Like that you’re getting forced to confront scarcity makes people think different ways, right, And like Montana, we just took an action to reduce non resident deer tags, yeah, which is really the first reduction that I’ve seen in a long time. And to me, like that stuff doesn’t happen until people get confronted with a scarcity, right, Rather, whether it’s scarcity in the ability to go someplace and be alone, or going, holy shit, where did all the bucks go?
00:51:40
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, when it becomes real in your own backyard or in your own life, that changes things. Yep, no doubt. And I don’t think that’s I don’t think that is going to be an isolated realization to Montana. There’s going to be. I think people have already been seeing and feeling that in many different ways, and it’s only going to accelerate. It’s only going to accelerate. Whether it be like me this past summer realizing like man, I guess it was two summers ago when it really hit me, but all the places I wanted to go fly fishing for trout couldn’t fish. They were all closed because the water was so hot, the water was so low, it was dangerous for trout. I realized that, wow, is this my new normal? That all July and August you can’t go fish eighty percent of the places you want because it’s so hot, or whether it be deer not being where they used to be, or whether it be I mean, there’s just so many different ways this might manifest in somebody’s life, depending on what you do and what you love and how you where you go. But we’re starting to see that, you know, there’s the nothing’s guaranteed if we’re not taking care of it. And I think the.
00:52:51
Speaker 1: You know, the storytelling is important and it’s got to continue because we have to present these things as backyard issues. Right, Like open space has more demands on it now than ever before. And that’s both open space on the public land side of the fence and on the private land side of the fence. Yeah, there’s folks chomping at the bit to break this stuff up. And we know for healthy landscapes, like those ecosystem services that we talked about, like particularly out here in the last like it takes a lot of land to matriculate clean water or grow that calcaffpair, let alone your mule deer.
00:53:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:53:40
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don’t think as Americans we’re going to like wrap our heads around a European style mindset anytime soon where we restrict who can purchase land where and what they can do with it in a lot of ways we already talked about, like the rollbacks on waters of the United States, which can do some of that. So like, well, this particular type of wetland is so important you can’t touch it, or in order to change that in a certain way, you got to go through like a painstaking process. So it’s going to be up to like the consumer to make smarter decisions, like like what are our demands going to be? Because it’s going to have a repercussions.
00:54:39
Speaker 2: It’s just kind of listening to us talk through this stuff. On one hand, it can sound very discouraging or not fun to think through all these things and all of these responsibilities and we need to do this, and we need to do that, and we have to step up. This kind of sounds like being twelve again and stuck listening to my dad preached to me about all that. But I do want to make the point that the more I get involved in this kind of stuff, especially with other people, the more fun opportunities I get to engage with people who care about the same things, Like this does not have to be like a fun sucking set of activities to care about and to take action on. Right, I think this stuff can actually bring people together and be fun to engage on, and can be energizing to engage on. You know, go into rallies like I went to this awesome rally, this spring in Minnesota to stand up for the boundary waters and got to be around all of these other people that I absolutely love hunting and fishing and wildlife and wild places, and it just filled you up. It got you excited, made new friends. The same thing this summer around the public land sale. You know, there are all these different rallies and events and people getting out and talking about this stuff, and it brings folks together. And so I think this can be a good thing. This can be a point of you know, rallying our community to continue to not just do the work, but to also enjoy it along the way and enjoy it together. And that’s pretty darn good that. That’s that’s good stuff. So this isn’t this isn’t necessarily, oh man, the rest of our lives, hunters and anglers is going to be this dull, depressing slog to try to protect these last places. I would look at it rather as like, hey, this is a great opportunity to come together, have a good time, rally our efforts to enjoy these places and protect them, enjoy these animals and conserve them. And that’s good news. That’s that’s exciting news.
00:56:46
Speaker 1: It is, and I think you know, it brings up that good point of the you got to kind of push back on like this exclusive use idea where it’s like, well, this group gets this, and this group gets this, and this group gets this. There’s gonna be like some concessions that have to be made in only the fact that you have to share the landscape with other people. But that the center of the of the Venn diagram, right, It’s like if people appreciate public lands and access to them, they’re an ally.
00:57:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely. It’s hard sometimes, right, Compromise isn’t always easy. Compromise can be a painful process to go through, you know, working with people who are different than you or care about things that are a little bit different than you. That’s not always easy. But yeah, like let’s be practical and realize that we need a big coalition. We we have a lot more in common with most folks that we don’t. So to your point, we’re going to have to stand together on stuff and say, hey, there’s ten percent that maybe we don’t see eyed eye on and it’s not worth canceling each other because of that. It’s not worth ignoring each other because because of that, it’s not worth calling each other enemies because of that. How about, Hey, I don’t agree with you on this part, but on the other seventy or sixty or ninety percent that we do agree on, let’s get that good stuff done. We can you know, talk about the rest over beers later and not agree. But the rest.
00:58:19
Speaker 1: Oh.
00:58:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:58:21
Speaker 1: I work with people all the time who do not like my my stance on killing wolves, which is I’m totally fine with it. They don’t like it to the point where I have to like say, like, you know, I’ve never actually shot one. I’m just open to the fact that it’s totally fine and will not have the type of effect on the landscape that you think it will.
00:58:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, these purity tests, you know, or like you have to be one hundred percent with me or you are all the way against me. Like that’s just not practical anymore. That’s not going to work.
00:58:59
Speaker 1: Was also just not how the world.
00:59:00
Speaker 2: Works exactly exactly.
00:59:02
Speaker 1: It never has, never will there go. Yeah. The the litmus test that I think people need to be aware of, right is like, if that politician says, well, you have to choose between your guns and public lands, that person is lying to you. Yeah, or they’re just so lazy that they don’t want to work hard enough to make it happen.
00:59:26
Speaker 2: I wish here, here’s this. This might be derailing us a little bit, kel, but I’m just going to toss out this thing that I wish we could somehow do, which I don’t know what it would take, but if somehow we could some way get to the point. And it’s probably not this next election or even the next one, but if someday, and we’ve had little moments of this, but if someday we could be at a position where this, these public land issues or wildlife issues or whatever it might be, was important enough that you had Republicans in primaries and Demmocrats in primaries that were fighting to be on the right side of it because they needed the votes of all of these folks, hunters and anglers and mountain bikers and climbers and hikers and backpackers and bird watchers of all types. We all wanted this thing, and so they were all saying, Okay, how do I make sure that you know, Yeah, I’m a Republican and I’m good on public lands. I’m a Democrat. I’d better be good on public lands across the board. If we could somehow get to the point that this became. I don’t want to choose, like you said, I don’t want to have to be like, well, I have to have my guns or my public lands or my guns and good wildlife policy or hunting opportunities. You know, these things should not be split by an arbitrary partisan the line. It doesn’t have to be. It wasn’t always that way. So I think we can shift it, We can get it back. But it does it will take, you know, it’ll take the stuff we’re talking about, and it’ll take time.
01:00:51
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, willingness to have the conversation. Like what makes me a real optimist in this space is all the time I spend traveling around and meeting people, and I’m doing the same things that everybody else is out there doing, right, I’m like, I’m not seeking exclusive use of anything, and I’m going into the roadside diners and truck stops and bars and you know, and chatting it up with folks, and like, it is so rare to run into somebody that is an absolutist and it’s like it’s all this way and it can’t be this other way. I don’t want to say it never happens but it is the exception and not the rule. But if you pay attention to the campaign cycles and what the mainstream media shortens down into the headline, it’s like, that’s what America only is, right, is people who don’t get along, And it’s just like, it is not what I see. It is not my reality, is not what I interact with.
01:02:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but to your point, like that is the it’s the reality that we receive because of not just the mainstream media, but also just like our new algorithm fed media. That’s so much of everything we consume comes from right, So we are slowly but surely being fed increasingly sensationalized, increasingly concentrated, increasingly. Now we don’t even know what’s real with AI. So you’ve got all of these forces that are making it easier and easier to be polarized.
01:02:39
Speaker 1: Aside from the water consumption of AI data centers, we know that’s real.
01:02:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is real. Let’s talk. There’s so much to talk about on all those fronts. So yeah, there’s there’s challenges, no doubt.
01:02:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean, I think going forward into twenty twenty six, the big ass here is like keep an open mind, be willing to have the conversation and go into those conversations confidently knowing that the stuff that you’re going to get along with on is probably the bulk of things. And the end goal, right is public lands, waters, wildlife, access to those things, and I would say like equitable access to those things as well. So you know, one of the things that the country was founded on was the fact that we weren’t reserving certain things for people of a certain economic status.
01:03:43
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Yeah, that’s the beauty of love what we do have, but got a fight to keep it darn right.
01:03:52
Speaker 1: All right, Mark, I’m gonna cut you loose. Thank you so much for coming on today. You’re welcome, and thank you to this lovely audience for listening to these rants and ramblings. At minimum gave you something to think about while you’re cruising down the road. Right in a S case C A L. That’s Ascal at the meeteater dot com and track Mark Kenyon down at Wired to Hunt.
01:04:18
Speaker 2: You got it, darn ratt.
01:04:20
Speaker 1: We’ll be seeing a lot more of you in the in the new year, Excited for the new challenges that you’re taking on on the meat eater front, and also the challenges that you took on being one of my bosses as a as a board member of Backcountry Hunters and English.
01:04:38
Speaker 2: That’s exciting too. I’m looking forward to bossing you around.
01:04:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, darn right, darn right, all right, Thanks A Buch
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