It's becoming clear that the most important thing hunters and anglers can do to ensure the future of their sport may be this: Buy a hybrid.
Anyone who doesn't think this nation's drill-first, conserve-later energy policy isn't the gravest threat to outdoors sports missed this headline last week: "Iowa Farm Bureau endorses elimination of CRP."
So what do farmers have to do with oil? And what does oil have to do with the quality of hunting, fishing, camping and boating?
It's really not a long story, nor an old one.
If you drive, you know gas prices have been on a steady climb and are expected to get even higher. As the oil industry, the wealthiest in the world, tells us repeatedly, prices are all about supply and demand. The estimates of future supplies are dropping and the demand skyrocketing, thanks to booming economies in the world's two most populous nations, China and India. Result: Plenty of market demand, which means soaring prices.
That's especially painful news for the United States. Not only does our demand far exceed local supplies, but our imports come largely from countries and cultures that consider us something lower than zoo dirt -- they actually want to kill us.
Faced with such dire consequences, you would think our government would demand conservation. But with so many oil men running the Bush administration, it has moved in the opposite direction: Increase production, regardless of consequences, with a ceremonial nod to conservation. That's how two-ton SUVs get tax credits, while write-offs for hybrids are capped at 60,000 vehicles per maker.
This philosophy was on display last year in the 2005 Energy Bill, which removed many of the protections for fish, wildlife, clean air and water that once governed energy development. It was the slogan at the Bureau of Land Management, which was told by the administration not to let any fish-and-wildlife programs interfere with energy production on public lands. The public that owns those lands, it turned out, has very little to say about how its property can be misused. Polls might show large majorities of Americans do not want to ditch environmental protections to increase oil industry profits, but Congress and the president aren't listening.
Which brings us to those farmers.
Despite what you may have heard on talk radio, 70 percent of the country is privately owned. That's why the farm bill has long been the single most important piece of legislation affecting fish and wildlife populations. For almost 20 years that bill has included provisions that encourage landowners to manage their property in a wildlife-friendly manner. By far the most well-known and successful feature has been the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, which pays farmers to leave acres untilled, usually in areas with highly erodable soils. CRP has been as popular with farmers as it is with wildlife advocates. But the nation's failed energy policy may be ruining this program.
It's all about biofuels. Certain plants, such as corn, can be used to produce ethanol, which can be used to power cars and trucks. Biofuels have three major advantages over gasoline: They contribute less to global warming, they lessen our reliance on oil imports from nasty nations, and they can be grown by private landowners.
To cheers from farm states, Congress will be offering subsidies for crops that can be used in biofuels. But if those subsidies are higher than the subsidies paid for wildlife programs such as CRP, it could have a dramatic impact on fish and wildlife production. Millions of acres currently serving wildlife would be lost to biofuels.
"We're already hearing that when (CRP) contracts expire, a lot of landowners will be switching to biofuels," said Lynn Tjeerdsma, of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. "We could see major progress made over the last 10 years for wildlife lost in a few years. That headline from Iowa really scares us. There are a lot of farmers who just never liked CRP, taking land out of crop production."
There are other problems. Biofuel production isn't without its negative environmental impacts. For example, three gallons of water are required to convert enough crops into a gallon of ethanol. Although Congress is subsidizing the construction of a series of ethanol plants across the nation, no one is sure what the impact will be on local aquifers. Further, there is debate on the total energy savings; some studies show it takes more total energy -- from farming to fertilizers to harvesting -- to produce ethanol than the energy the fuel can produce.
"What we're afraid of is that Congress is rushing into these programs without giving careful look at the impacts, and without considering fish and wildlife values," said Jen Mock, with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. "We want fish and wildlife to be a partner in this. We've seen what happens when we try to add fish and wildlife after a program is approved and running. It's usually not good."
Of course, there's a way to avoid all the anxiety and much of the taxpayer funding for these programs. Simply raise the vehicle fuel economy standards. If we put as much emphasis on conservation as we do on production and profits, we'll reduce our foreign exposure and leave fish and wildlife habitat largely intact.
So, buy a hybrid.