Collaboration isn’t capitulation as hunters, anglers defend Montana’s roadless lands

When George Ochenski warns that conservation groups sometimes trade their spines for a seat at the table, he taps into a frustration every public-lands hunter knows: Deals can slide from compromise to concession in a hurry. 

Yet his July 4 column paints Backcountry Hunters & Anglers with a brush so broad it obscures the facts.

One week before the column ran, the U.S. Department of Agriculture erased the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and exposed 58 million acres of undeveloped forest to new roads and logging.

Within hours BHA blasted the decision as “a blatant rejection of 24 years of bipartisan stewardship,” urged Congress to restore the rule, and asked its 40,000 members to mobilize during the public-comment period. That is not silence; it is the opening salvo of a fight that will last well beyond this news cycle.

Nor is the rollback an isolated case.

In 2022 BHA’s Montana chapter sued the Forest Service when the agency tried to cede public-access easements in the Crazy Mountains—litigation funded largely by small donors and squarely opposed by local timber interests. Idaho members recently flooded congressional offices with calls that helped stall a bill to sell public land to private developers. Grass-roots lawyering and lobbying are hard to square with the notion of a compromised collaborator.

So what about “collaboration?”

After catastrophic fire seasons, some cross-boundary thinning is biologically defensible; some is not. The difference lies in the details, which is why BHA publishes comment guides that prod hunters and anglers to demand site-specific science, cumulative-effects analysis, and intact wildlife-security zones before a chainsaw or dozer fires up. That posture forces both agencies and industry to earn public consent.

Ochenski also resurrects a 2011 congressional rider that delisted wolves in the Northern Rockies. BHA had no national staff in 2011. Today its wildlife policy states that management decisions must be grounded in science and executed through administrative processes, not legislative shortcuts. In practice that stance has meant opposing Idaho’s wolf-bounty program, challenging predator-killing bills in Alaska, and supporting balanced harvest quotas in Colorado.

Claims that BHA is driven by “foundation millions” likewise miss the mark. Audited financials show that 78 percent of its $9.2 million Fiscal Year 2023 budget went directly to program work; individual memberships and grass-roots events, not foundation grants, generated the largest share of revenue. Transparency doesn’t guarantee perfect decisions, but it makes it hard to hide a sell-out.

None of this is to deny that collaboration can be abused. When process becomes product, industry actors can dilute conservation outcomes. But collaboration can also lock in gains otherwise stalled by litigation or partisanship—the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act and the North Fork Protection Act both moved because unlikely allies hammered out durable terms. 

BHA backed each deal because it expanded habitat and public access, not because it was fashionable in philanthropic circles.

The lesson is simple: Conservation victories require coalitions that stretch beyond any single demographic—hunters, anglers, Tribal communities, recreationists, and even commodity producers willing to meet halfway. The alternative is fractured interest groups firing from ideological redoubts while intact habitat erodes in real time.

Ochenski’s anger at backsliding agencies is justified; his broadside against fellow conservationists is not. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers stands ready to fight for roadless areas, science-based wildlife management and transparent public processes—precisely the values he champions. 

By all means hold the group accountable, but let’s argue on evidence, not assumption. The stakes—clean water, healthy wildlife populations, and the freedom to roam Montana’s wildest country—are too high for friendly fire.

Garrett Robinson is the Corporate Partnerships Manager for the Armed Forces Initiative of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of any organization or entity. He lives in Stafford, Virginia.