25. March 2017 · Comments Off on BCHA: Take Action – Chiefs Strategy & Selection of Priority Areas · Categories: BCHI /BCHA

Dear BCHI Member,
Please funnel your input thru your Lands Liaisons and/or State Directors to Rod Parks at public-lands-north@bchi.org  and Phil Ryan at public-lands-south@bchi.org, as they are already in the middle of this issue.

Thank,
Bill Conger
Chairman

 

 

Take Action

BCHA encourages you to immediately reach out to your U.S. Forest Service regional trail coordinators. A contact list is provided below. The agency needs your help to identify priority areas for increased trail maintenance accomplishments.

Background

As a result of BCHA’s efforts to shape and promote the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act, signed into law in November 2016, the U.S. Forest Service is required to identify 9 to 15 “priority areas for increased trail maintenance accomplishments” (Section 5, Public Law 114-245). The Act specifies there must be at least one priority area in each of the nine U.S. Forest Service regions.

A copy of Act can be found on BCHA’s website. The Forest Service national office recently issued instructions to its nine regional offices to provide initial guidance for implementation of the Act. In it, they direct regional offices to work with the public to identify and rank recommended priority areas, which are to be submitted by Forest Service regional offices to the national office by April 15th, 2017.

Thus, time is of the essence.

Reach out to USFS Regional Trail Coordinators
If you have not done so already, we encourage BCH chapters to work with their Forest Service regional trail coordinators within the next few weeks to share input on the selection of priority areas. Contact information for each regional trail coordinator can be found at the end of this alert.
National Board Members:

Please be prepared to bring to next month’s National Board Meeting an update on conversations your state is having with Forest Service regional trail coordinators.

Chief’s National Strategy for a Sustainable Trail System
The Forest Service is excited about the timing of the passage of the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act and the agency’s completion this month of the Chief’s National Strategy for a Sustainable Trail System

The strategy outlines a series of strategic actions to move the agency toward attaining a more sustainable trail system, including:

  • Evaluation and potential reorganization of the agency’s Trail Program to increase field capacity;
  • Creation of a national process for the identification of a sustainable trail system; and
  • Inviting the creation of a national Trails Endowment, to direct funding to on-the-ground projects to be funded primarily via corporate/philanthropic donation.

The Forest Service Continues to be a Great Partner
BCHA shares the Forest Service’s enthusiasm over the fact that trails, and trail maintenance, recently have become a higher priority within the agency. We greatly appreciate that the Chief and leaders of the agency’s trails program, like Joe Meade, have been welcoming partners throughout the Trails Act process. By developing the Chief’s strategy, they also have taken decisive action to tackle the challenges identified in a 2013 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (titled “Forest Service Trails: Long- and Short-Term Improvements Could Reduce Maintenance Backlog and Enhance System Sustainability.” GAO-13-618). We salute these go-getters.

Conclusion
Now it’s time to gather additional partners, roll up our sleeves and get some more trail maintenance done. BCHA’s volunteers cannot be expected to reverse the trail maintenance backlog by ourselves, but with the breadth of partners and goodwill we have accumulated over the years, there is no better time to ensure our legacy of “keeping trails open for everyone.”

Donald Saner

Chairman

Regional Points of Contact regarding the Identification of Trail Maintenance Priority Areas:

Region Contact Email Phone
1 – Northern Region Kent Wellner kwellner@fs.fed.us 406-329-3150
2 – Rocky Mountain Region Scott Haas sehaas@fs.fed.us 303-275-5164
3 – Southwestern Region Dennis Garcia dggarcia@fs.fed.us 505-842-3443
4 – Intermountain Region Chris Hartman chartman01@fs.fed.us 801-625-5164
5 – Pacific Southwest Region Garrett Villanueva gvillanueva@fs.fed.us 530-543-2762
6 – Pacific Northwest Region Dennis Benson denniscbenson@fs.fed.us 541-604-4570
8 – Southern Region Debbie Caffin dcaffin@fs.fed.us 404-347-4033
9 – Eastern Region Leon LaVigne llavigne@fs.fed.us 414-297-1313
10 –Alaska Region Sharon Seim sharongseim@fs.fed.us 907-388-8804

Don’t know which region your state falls into? Click here for a map of Forest Service regions.

25. March 2017 · Comments Off on Tail Winds – Life Flight Network Newsletter · Categories: Around The Campfire, Current Events


Tail winds Spring 2017

22. March 2017 · Comments Off on 2016 BCHI Hours & Miles Summary · Categories: BCHI /BCHA, Current Events

21. March 2017 · Comments Off on Resolution that BCH of New Mexico is bringing forward at the BCHA National Directors’ Annual Meeting, April 20-22 · Categories: BCHI /BCHA, Current Events


Members of Back Country Horsemen of Idaho

Attached is a Resolution that BCH of New Mexico is bringing forward at the BCHA National Directors’ Annual Meeting, April 20-22.

Please discuss with your membership and have your chapter’s directors or president send your comments and/or questions to both of our National Directors and to the Chairman at:

Bill Conger
chairman@bchi.org

Amy Lyman
national-director-1@bchi.org

Sam Duncan
national-director-2@bchi.org

Regards,


Debbie Samovar
BCHI Secretary
secretarybchi@gmail.com
208-245-3041

BCHANM_Proposed_Resolution_for_BCHA_NBM_2017

13. March 2017 · Comments Off on BLM – Recreation Planners · Categories: Around The Campfire, BCHI /BCHA

BLM Seeks Public Input on Travel Plan Analyses around Birds of Prey NCA

The Bureau of Land Management is preparing an environmental assessment for a travel management plan that will encompass public lands within and around Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area.

12. March 2017 · Comments Off on Idaho Wildlife Federation · Categories: BCHI /BCHA, Current Events

The Idaho Wildlife Federation is Idaho’s oldest statewide conservation organization. Founded by sportsmen and women in 1936, we’re a leader in creating solutions to solve complex natural resource issues to protect our fish and wildlife, their habitats, and our hunting and fishing traditions.

http://www.idahowildlife.org/Our efforts advance “made in Idaho” solutions that sustain wildlife and sporting opportunities that thrive while maintaining local economies and working agricultural landscapes through sound policy work, landscape planning, and education.

Our Mission

The Idaho Wildlife Federation is dedicated to promoting the conservation and protection of our natural resources, wildlife, and wildlife habitat for future and current generations.

Who We Are

Founded in 1936, the Idaho Wildlife Federation is Idaho’s oldest statewide conservation organization. For the last 80 years, Idaho citizens with farsighted commitment to conservation have united to ensure wildlife’s future. We are sportsmen and women, business people, farmers and ranchers, children, parents and grandparents, teachers, laborers, students — in short, all of us who care about wildlife and care about our futures. The Idaho Wildlife Federation proves that conservation is all of us working together. By committing to work together for wildlife in spite of our differences, IWF will continue to lead the offensive for Idaho’s wildlife as a united voice, as it has for the last 80 years.

What We Do

The Idaho Wildlife Federation is the sportsman advocate and voice in the state legislature. We are present at the statehouse every day during the annual legislative session to advance proactive sportsman legislation and defeat bills that would roll back fish and wildlife protections, privatize wildlife, and turn over our shared public lands to the states for private sale.

We defend our public lands and our right to access them. We know that our system of public lands offers unspoiled, unfragmented, connected landscapes that provide a richness of fish and wildlife with unparalleled hunting and fishing afforded nowhere else in the United States.

We also represent sportsmen interests and sound wildlife management within landscape planning processes that involve state and federal agencies as well as private land. We do this by engaging communities and involving local constituents to create local solutions. By coordinating these efforts and the efforts of other organizations interested in the conservation of natural resources of the state of Idaho, IWF fosters and promotes a general and continued movement for the conservation, restoration, protection, and scientific supervision of all game, fish, fowl, and other wildlife in its habitat in the state.

Brian Brooks, Executive Director

(Speaker at the 2017 BCHI Convention)

Brian grew up in Idaho hunting and fishing in every corner of the state. He has had a fly rod or spinning rod in his hands since he was four years old and began hunting birds at 12. Big game soon followed. Idaho’s extensive system of public lands kept Brian in pursuit of fish and game further and further into the backcountry. Combining the exploration of Idaho’s seemingly limitless wild places with the primal participation in the cycle of life and death, Brian developed a respect and reverence for land and wildlife and the active role sportsmen and women play in their management.

The realization that our accessible public lands, clean waters, and robust fish and wildlife populations didn’t happen on accident motivated Brian to pursue an education that would give him the tools to work to preserve and enhance the opportunities he grew up with for others, forever. He received a B.S. in Conservation Social Science, a Masters of Natural Resources, and a Certificate in Restoration Ecology from the University of Idaho. Brian’s professional experience includes leading habitat restoration and trail crews, forestry, salmon and steelhead restoration planning, wildlife rehab/sanctuary manager, outdoor writer, and natural resource policy.

Besides fishing and hunting, Brian enjoys mountain and road biking, skiing and snowboarding, backpacking, and morel hunting.

IWF Is The Sportsman Voice in The State Legislature

We are at the state house every time sportsmen interests are under attack. We facilitate strategic legislative planning for sportsmen groups, professionally represent their interests in the legislature, promptly disseminate action alerts to our groups and supporters, and maintain close contact with the press. With a wealth of knowledge of natural resource policy, we operate by anticipating bad bills to efficiently defeat them, authoring proactive wildlife and sportsmen legislation, testifying in committee, and utilizing our state of the art communication and outreach system.

Sign up here for news, legislative updates, and action alerts for the legislative session.

Click this link to find your local legislators https://legislature.idaho.gov/about/12districtmap.pdf

Idaho Wildlife Federation
P.O. Box 6426
Boise, ID 83707
Phone: 208.342.7055
Email: info@idahowildlife.org

11. March 2017 · Comments Off on BCHA History Video · Categories: Around The Campfire, BCHI /BCHA


Watch Video

08. March 2017 · Comments Off on Back Country Hunters & Anglers · Categories: Around The Campfire

http://www.backcountryhunters.org/

OUR MISSION

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers seeks to ensure North America’s outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting, through education and work on behalf of wild public lands and waters.

A Vision for Backcountry Conservation

Our freedom to hunt and fish depends on habitat. While many of us enjoy hunting and fishing on a range of landscapes, including farm fields and reservoirs, there is something special – even magical – about hunting deep in the backcountry or fishing on a remote river.

Wilderness hunting and fishing deliver a sense of freedom, challenge and solitude that is increasingly trampled by the twin pressures of growing population and increasing technology. Many treasured fish and wildlife species – such as cutthroat trout, grizzly bear and bighorn sheep – thrive in wilderness. Others, like elk and mule deer, benefit from wilderness. From the Steens Mountain Wilderness in Oregon to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho and the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, BHA members treasure America’s wilderness system and strive to add to it.

We take the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: “Preserve large tracts of wilderness … for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether or not he is a man of means.”


We are the Idaho chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a grassroots group of sportsmen and -women. We are united by a passion to protect and conserve public land forests, mountains, prairies, streams and lakes that support our hunting and angling traditions. Idaho BHA members are deeply concerned that the traditional backcountry values — solitude, quiet recreation, personal challenge, physical fitness, adventure — that make Idaho hunting and fishing so special are being compromised.

Habitat destruction, disturbances stemming from development, and abuse and overuse from irresponsible motorized recreationists are threatening the very things that we hold dear. We respect the crucial role that all species play in our diverse ecosystems and seek to ensure that species and habitat management decisions are based on sound science instead of politics. We believe that undeveloped, unspoiled public lands are irreplaceable and must be managed, along with the fish and wildlife they supports, as a sacred public trust.

Idaho BHA supports and promotes natural resource management policies based on sound scientific principles. By extension, the Idaho BHA chapter is involved in educating hunters and anglers about proposals and current policies that are unsustainable and detrimental to the landscape, wildlife populations and our ability to pass on our values and traditions to future generations.

To accomplish our objectives, the Idaho BHA membership contacts policy makers and federal resource managers, gives public testimony at stakeholder meetings and legislative hearings, communicates our views through public media, and participates in outreach activities at sportsmen shows. Some members sit on collaborative advisory boards and travel planning committees, giving BHA a seat at the table as grassroots advocates for habitat, wildlife and traditional outdoor activities.

Idaho BHA is committed to the long-term conservation of the wild, unspoiled public lands on which Idaho’s world-class game and fish resources depend. Wild, unspoiled habitat is essential to the future of traditional-values hunting and angling in our state. Together, we volunteer our time to ensure the following:

Future generations of Americans will have the same opportunities to enjoy and protect the wild public commons that we and previous generations have embraced as a national birthright.
That our public lands backcountry will continue to exist intact, with healthy ecosystems that include balanced populations of predators and prey.
Idaho BHA works hard at protecting the things we value. We also play hard. Many of us enjoy some of the most spectacular roadless areas in the lower 48; Idaho supports some of the best hunting and fishing opportunities anywhere. If this describes where you want to be, you need to be with us! To see what Idaho BHA is working on, please explore our website. If you like what you see and want to get involved, please join us!
North America’s public lands and waters are the lifeblood of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.

These are the cherished wild places that restore our spirits and provide the solace of solitude. They’re where we go to challenge ourselves in pursuit of adventure and game. They are strongholds of important wildlife habitat and fisheries, providing places where a range of species – everything from elk and mule deer to grouse, waterfowl and native trout – can grow to maturity and thrive.

Every citizen owns a share of public lands and waters in the United States. It is up to us to defend this heritage and ensure that our legacy of stewardship is handed down to future generations intact. We work to maintain our longstanding sporting traditions through hard work and a focus on the following:

Habitat Conservation
Conserving Priority Landscapes
Responsible OHV Use and Management
Defending Our Public Lands Legacy

05. March 2017 · Comments Off on Idaho rally goers hope public lands stay in public hands! · Categories: Around The Campfire, Current Events

 

NICOLE BLANCHARD Idaho Statesman March 4, 2017

Sean Jones wasn’t planning on bringing his elk bugle call to the public lands rally at the Idaho statehouse on Saturday. But its trumpeting sound rang out across Jefferson Street and the south steps of the capitol building in harmony with the raucous applause and cheers of the more than 2,000 Idahoans gathered in the chilly morning drizzle.

Jones, like so many other outdoor lovers, was at the rally because he’s an avid hunter, rafter and hiker. Like he does on most outdoor adventures, he brought his gear bag, an elk antler strapped to the bungee cord on the back of the pack and the triumphant-sounding elk call conveniently at hand.

“I want to have access,” said Jones, echoing a theme that dominated the rally. “I’ve seen far too many ‘no trespassing’ signs when I’m out hunting.”

Jones said he has emailed and called Idaho legislators to let them know he opposes the potential transfer of public lands to the state or private hands. He wasn’t impressed with their responses.

“Particularly Raul Labrador,” said Jones. (Rep. Labrador has led pushes for pilot programs that would give states control over federal lands.)

How did the lawmakers respond?

“The typical argument that lands are mismanaged,” said Jones. “But we know the forest managers, the BLM, the people making decisions (about Idaho lands) actually live here.”

Read More: public lands stay in public hands

03. March 2017 · Comments Off on CPR & Wilderness First Aid Refresher · Categories: Current Events, Training Events


CPR & Wilderness First Aid Refresher – Saturday, May 27, 2017
Time: 08:00 to 17:00
Location: Bogus Basin Office, 2600 N. Bogus Basin Rd, Boise, ID 83702
This class has a limit on the number of participants, so Sign up Now!
This hands on day is being hosted by members of the Bogus Basin Ski Patrol
Lead instructor – Karen Alfonso-King
This day is very hands on and is tailored to the types of medical situations that we are likely to encounter.
Squaw Butte Member cost is $20, non-members $50 (the chapter will be cost sharing with members)

Sign up for this event like you would for any other chapter ride or project.
Contact: Marybeth Conger, 208-369-0769 Education@sbbchidaho.org

More Pictures
Bogus Basin Ticket Office, 2600 N. Bogus Basin Rd,Boise, ID 83702

It is also highly recommended you have one of these books in your library and take it with you into the back country.

02. March 2017 · Comments Off on Back Country Horsemen of Idaho – Video 2017 · Categories: Around The Campfire, Current Events

Utube URL: (https://youtu.be/zZegBv0B2cc)

This video is the work of Robbin Schindele & Marybeth Conger

 

02. March 2017 · Comments Off on March 2017 Education Report · Categories: Current Events

Marybeth Conger (BCHI Education Chair)

Squaw Butte BCH Education report
Respectfully submitted by Marybeth Conger
March 2, 2017 meeting

CPR & Wilderness First Aide Refresher Course– Proposed 4 dates Sat March 25, Sat April 15, Sat may 27 or Sat June 17. Waiting to hear back from Karen Alfonso-King.

Idaho Horse Expo- http://idahohorsecouncil.com Bill Conger taking lead to coordinate a Packing demonstration with the Event coordinator. This is a great educational and public outreach opportunity for Back Country Horseman. More details to follow.

LNT Master Education Course- Nine Mile Remount is no longer offering this course. Back Country Horsemen of California (BCHC) http://www.bchcalifornia.org was nationally recognized for leadership in Leave No Trace education of stock use. In 2015 they were awarded the contract to provide the only Leave No Trace Stock Master Educator course in the country. BCHC earned this remarkable opportunity through hard work, sustained effort in promoting environmental friendly land use with stock.

Back Country Horsemen of California provides the “Leave No Trace” Stock Coarse regularly every April, it is switched from Northern California to Southern California each year as well as offering additional classes as the needed. They also can provide a Team of Instructors to travel to your State under special arrangements.
BCHI Education report- Will be presented at BOD meeting and convention. Look for full report on the SBBCH Blog