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Comment by kharms | Hacker News Reader

Why do you recommend seeking out right-leaning groups?

Lots of environmental issues get tied up in a debate that usually goes like:

    Left: "Issue X is a problem"
    Right: "No it's not"
    Left: " ... "

...and repeats ad nauseam. If the right was more open to solving environmental issues, we wouldn't have these issues and the debate could be about policy, not the existence of the issue itself.

Right-leaning groups already have an "in" with the right and will naturally be better at educating and convincing the right than left-leaning groups.

I would recommend right-leaning groups as well, but that's mostly because of the hunting communities are usually associated with the actual 'use' of public lands, and have been supporting most of the ecological/wildlife research. There's recently been a big push towards historically sustainable wildlife systems, and that's a topic that resonates with most of the more conservative hunting communities.

Yup. A lot of people don't want to admit that hunters were the original conservationists. And also, a lot of non-hunters don't support hunting-oriented conservation methods. For instance, just because you buy a duck stamp it doesn't mean you have to go duck hunting. Duck stamps support the preservation of duck habitat and other wetlands. Buying a duck stamp is an easy way to directly contribute targetted money to wetlands preservation. Just for an example.

Yea this is exactly what I was talking about. Buying a fishing tag or a hunting tag is also an excellent way to get money directly into the hands of those who work in environmental conservation

hunters originally only wanted to 'preserve' what they wanted to kill... otherwise we'd still have wolves, grizzlies, and other predators of all sizes, at their historic populations. likewise, certain hunters favorites wouldn't be dealing with population issues now. the ranchers have done the most harm though, they seem to want to kill everything, imo.

Ironically one of the consequences of strict laws protecting endangered species is it actually leads to more destruction not less. A rancher notices a protected animal on his land and gets rid of it to avoid getting harangued by the government. "Shoot, Shovel and Shutup"

Not entirely. In practice, the net result is that hunters want to preserve habitat. The large predator species that you mention require a huge range. It is the fragmentation of habitat that has done them in as much as anything else.

warning - generalizations ahead

Progressives tend to already support/buy in to conservation issues, so reaching and tapping In to the political right is where you can get the most bang for your buck.

The obvious question is why can’t other groups reach the conservative environmentalists? Some progressive leaning environmentalist groups embrace ideals which can be at odds with conservative views, while only being tangential to important things like wilderness conservation. Some progressive leaning environmental groups use ‘evil conservatives’ as a fund raising meme. Some simply identify as progressive and don’t leave any room for conservatives.

Truth is, in a huge chunk of this great nation, the people that enjoy, visit, and use national wilderness the most are conservative. They’re hunters and multi-generation farmers and ranchers. Sure, one of them might leave a beer bottle on the ground behind their skyjacked F250, but if they caught you poaching a doe out of season there’d be hell to pay.

Because they are a bit of an untapped resource. The right are more likely to be open to conservation efforts rather than traditional crunchy environmental efforts, but they too often feel driven out.

The right controls the government today. The right listens to right-leaning hunting groups a lot more than left-leaning conservation groups. See Chaffetz's rescinded bill from earlier this year.

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