Wide-Open Spaces

If you’re reading this, chances are, you’re one of the more than 70 percent of IAFF members who enjoy spending time in the great outdoors hunting, fishing and shooting. As part of this union’s mission to unite the men and women in the fire service, the IAFF is identifying issues, hobbies and interests shared by a significant portion of its members, and providing a means for coming together around those common interests.

The IAFF, along with a number of other unions, has joined the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), an organization focused on conserving, maintaining and enhancing access to land and water available for enjoying hunting, fishing and shooting.

Founded in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt — the nation’s 26th president and an avid outdoorsman himself — this alliance provides programs and benefits for IAFF members to enjoy the outdoors.

In addition, the unions within TRCP recently began discussions to create a union dedicated sportsman’s club that would have its own magazine, web site, radio show and affinity program to promote union-made products and equipment and offer discount merchandise and trips.

“This sportsman’s association is a great concept and would give members with a love for the outdoors and a shared interest in hunting, shooting and fishing the opportunity to engage in these activities through our union, while preserving access to land and water to continue to pursue their hobbies,” says IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger, an avid hunter and shooter.

In February, Schaitberger attended the first meeting of a working group of union presidents at the world’s largest outdoor event, the Shot Show, to develop the parameters that the TRCP union sportsman’s program would follow. The affiliated unions within TRCP represent more than 5.6 million members.

The coalition of unions now affiliated with the TRCP represent major new muscle in the fight to get sportsman’s issues the attention they deserve. This partnership has the potential to be one of the most significant events to occur in the world of hunting and fishing advocacy in the last 50 years.

TRCP and leaders from these unions are also currently working together to map out the best way to develop the union sportsman’s arm so that it will be of value to members, including the development of an affinity program for discount hunting, fishing and shooting gear.

In addition to its union partners, TRCP was created by and remains a coalition of groups representing nonprofit conservation organizations, outdoor businesses and local rod and gun clubs, including the American Sportfishing Association, BASS/ESPN Outdoors, Ducks Unlimited, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, The Nature Conservancy, Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, Remington, Sturm, Ruger and Co., and the Wildlife Management Institute.

Representing nearly 13 million hunters and anglers, TRCP and its partners work to ensure that the nation’s lawmakers, land managers and public agencies are addressing the core areas of concern for TRCP: expanding access to quality places to hunt and fish; protecting habitat essential to healthy fish and game populations; and increasing funding necessary for better management of the nation’s fish and wildlife recourses.

TRCP provides its partners and members with information on important issues and ways to take action to make their voices heard and to help preserve land for hunting and fishing and other outdoor recreation. IAFF union members are encouraged to join the TRCP and become active in its grassroots program.

In 2003 TRCP developed and helped introduce legislation called the “Open Fields” bill designed to get funding to state programs that are opening millions of acres of private land to public hunting and fishing. And, this year, TRCP lobbied for and secured almost $2 billion in new conservation spending in the Highway Bill, funding for improving sportsmen’s access to national forest and refuge land, for sportfishing infrastructure needs, for improvements of recreational trails, better fish passage structures,and programs to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.

This unprecedented $2 billion in funding exemplifies what the TRCP wants to do, and what can be done, when the full weight of America’s sportsmen are behind specific policy goals.