Maybe it’s not the one you're asking, but it seems to beg the question- do the NAM and Public Trust Doctrine actually matter? Or only when we want them to?
My opinion - yes, they matter. They matter a lot. If they don't matter, then I've spent most of my adult life "tilting at windmills."
I don't feel that they only matter when we want them to. Those issue matter whether it does/doesn't work toward my personal favor. I see how some think asserting the principles of a state-based Public Trust Doctrine is a selective application of the NA Model. I don't see it that way. I'll try to explain.
I accept the complications that come with state-trusteed wildlife and public lands owned by the Federal government. The access to tags determines one of the primary connection some have to the public lands. As states become more accountable to their residents under this state-based wildlife Trust model, that impacts non-residents. As it negatively impacts non-residents, I understand their diminished connection to public land issues.
That need for direct connection drives a lot of our content. We feel that if we want people to advocate for something, it has to come from a tangible experience where they can feel it, breath it, see it, even eat it. It is unrealistic to expect people to advocate for an abstract idea they have little chance to be connected to. I hope they will, but pragmatically, it's just not going to happen.
All of that is why I continue to hammer the idea that "growing larger herds" is the best solution to these inherent contradictions of accountability to state residents as Beneficiaries and how that accountability can work against non-resident opportunity. A lot of the issues are lessened when we have more animals on the ground.
Yet, from when I examine the data from the content we produce, it shows that people have very little interest in investing their time on topics of habitat, conservation, and increased herds. That data also shows the audiences are far more engaged in arguing over allocation of the shrinking wild herds.
Again, maybe I'm just too far out in the weeds. It's my observation, maybe incorrectly, that we've created an environment among hunters where many hunters have resolved themselves to the notion of ever-decreasing herd sizes. That's a scarcity mindset we've created among our community. In business or society, when a scarcity mindset is present, it is instinctive for the members to focus more on what they can protect and preserve for their own, rather than focus on creating more of the scarce item. I think point schemes represent one of the most obvious examples that contribute to that mindset. But, those are not going away.
The challenge I pose to myself and our crew is this - how do we promote ideas that help us become more abundance thinkers and less scarcity thinkers? In other words, how do we help people advocate for bigger and better herds rather than spend their limited time/money/energy fighting harder to protect their share?
That might be a long diversion to the question you are asking. I see all of these topics interconnected. I can connect dots to all of them. The more politics poisons the system, the smaller the herds, or the more the herds get allocated to chosen classes. That leaves less for the non-chosen classes, creating more scarcity and making it harder to combat the scarcity thinking mindset.
When I connect the dots the opposite manner, by focusing energy on more habitat, larger herds, and less political poison, most the issues we argue about subside a lot. If we still had 600,000 pronghorn in Wyoming, would residents feel as much pressure to push for 90/10? And even if it went to 90/10, would 10% non-resident allocation at 600,000 pronghorn still be more/same tags than the current 80/20 with only 300,000 pronghorn? Same with Colorado mule deer and elk. Same with Nevada mule deer. Same with all of our species in many states.
I challenge myself as to ways I can show non-residents, and I'm a non-resident in all western states other than Montana, that my long-term opportunities are far higher if I put my energy into efforts that increase herds in those states I want to hunt as a non-resident. Whether the allocation is 10%, 20%, 25%, that non-resident percentage applied against a higher herd number is a far better outcome to me as a non-resident.
That's my way of connecting the realities of the Public Trust Doctrine and our state-based Trustee model to non-resident allocation. The Model has been successful in restoring herds to abundant levels. Now, we face many factors that have cause herds to decline, combined with explosive resident population growth, both putting a ton of pressure on non-resident allocations.
The solution is not to junk the NA Model, or let the Public Trust become the domain of political agents, or try to dismantle the state-based system that got us here. The solution, in my mind, is to keep these institutions intact and work toward putting more animals in the hills.
That's how 35 years of involvement in these issues leads me to believe, based on the context of what I see today.
