CWE continues to fight for the public's participation in natural resource policies

We trust our elected officials and their appointees to honor the duties of their offices by serving the public interest to the best of their ability. Government officials and the institutions they manage rightfully lose our respect when they breach this public trust and defy the common good.

Click the photo above to view the report.

Since its creation, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) has operated under a patchwork quilt of arcane, increasingly clandestine practices and policies. These policies have become normalized and are used to justify conduct that has strayed further and further from the agency’s primary mission and core legislative mandate.

IDNR exists, fundamentally, for one reason: To serve as the trustee for Indiana’s wildlife and public lands while acting as the steward of public assets for an uncertain future.

In 2018, CWE sued IDNR because the agency was undermining its primary stewardship mission, among other things.

CWE discovered the agency had used a series of temporary rules for more than a decade to exclude the public from participating in the agency’s policy-making decisions that promote IDNR’s controversial agenda surrounding public lands and wildlife use. The agency’s misuse of the temporary rules went on for so long it became ingrained in the agency’s culture.

CWE’s litigation shines a bright light on IDNR’s process and policy in the interest of public involvement. The IDNR has the authority to restrict public access to the state parks for legitimate purposes and in the interest of safety. This is not, and has never been, in dispute. But the agency’s power of restriction does not extend to the public’s access and full participation to the decision-making process.

The Indiana Attorney General’s recent press release mischaracterizes CWE’s claims and seeks to convince the public that IDNR’s failure to include the public in the agency’s decision-making processes is perfectly fine.

Only a deeply cynical view of justice could motivate someone to claim victory when an unpublished opinion from the Indiana Court of Appeals “upheld the… years of rule-making by the DNR” – without any public input.

Public participation is a fundamental democratic principle that must be honored by Indiana’s Chief legal officer and other appointed public officials. The Appellate Court’s ruling cannot stand.

CWE’s Petition for Rehearing can be found here.

Announcing Exciting CWE Art Fundraiser/Auction

World-renowned artist, friend, and supporter of Center for Wildlife Ethics, Dean McRaine has generously donated a gorgeous piece of his artwork, entitled "Turtle Love" in support of CWE’s important work.

This is an original work by Dean McRaine of LightWave studio. From the last of the blue turtle series block - "Turtle Love" is a wheel thrown porcelain bowl (10" x 10" x 2") with a hanger on the back, high fired (2300 degrees) using Dean's colored clay millefiori technique. It is glazed with a clear glaze for durability and ease of cleaning (lead-free, non-toxic, food safe, microwave and dishwasher safe). 

The fundraiser will happen in the form of an online eBay auction.  This week-long auction/fundraiser begins June 8th, 2019 at 11:00 am Central Daylight Time.  

CWE extends its deepest gratitude to Dean for his generous (and breathtaking) gift.

See the video below to learn how Dean makes these incredible pieces of art:

---

More About the Artist:

Dean McRaine is a world renowned Hawaii based colored clay millefiori ceramic artist.  Primarily self-taught, he has been creating original ceramic works of art for more than 30 years.  His original colored clay technique attracted the attention of Art Insider – representatives traveled to his Kauai studio to shoot a short video of his process which has garnered more than 42 million views to date. 

In the world of art, Dean has paved his own path by breaking the "traditional boundaries of ceramic techniques" and creating what is essentially an entirely new art-form.  As someone who is both personally recharged and artistically inspired by nature, Dean appreciates the sanctity of wildlife and public access to wild places.  With that in mind, he was happy to donate a piece of his magnificent nature-themed art to support the important work of the Center for Wildlife Ethics.

---

Wildlife agencies desperate to create the illusion they’re relevant

In September 2018, the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies released a marketing campaign toolkit to address the state wildlife agencies’ greatest challenge:

“…the perception that they are relevant and important only to hunters and anglers.”

As those actively involved in wildlife and/or public land protection already know, the state wildlife agency’s preferential treatment to consumptive users (e.g., those who hunt, trap and fish) is not just a perception, but rather, a reality. Agency actions routinely focus on managing public lands and manipulating wildlife populations for hunter/angler satisfaction with little to no regard given to the larger public or the animals exploited. 

This marketing campaign toolkit seems to suggest that the stewards of our natural wild resources are beginning to acknowledge that catering solely to the 4% of the nation’s population who hunt (and 14% who fish) is a bad business model.

However, rather than actually working to adopt an organizational mission and function that truly prioritizes the non-hunting majority’s needs and preferences, the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies chooses to coach the state agencies in how to most effectively reach audiences they’ve historically ignored. In other words, the Association would rather hire marketing pros to create the illusion that wildlife agencies serve the broader public, than actually put any effort into examining how they’ve failed non-hunters and their duties as natural resource stewards.

Their toolkit provides state agencies with clever marketing pointers for duping target audiences into believing that they serve the larger public, while, behind the scenes, the agencies are free to continue to route the vast majority of their resources and energy to consumptive uses. 

Although the toolkit primarily targets non-hunters and therefore explicitly categorizes hunters and anglers* as a "secondary audience", the smaller print offers clarification:

“Hunters and anglers are likely to be the priority audience for some states…Messages cannot alienate core constituency of hunters and anglers.”

This clever marketing kit, promoting the theme, “Making it Last”,  covers every imaginable detail including identification of the wildlife agencies’ target audiences, the preferred demographic for campaign imagery, and the most effective colors and font choices. Prepared branding materials, positioning guidelines, video scripts, and marketing tactics for paid and nonpaid media aid state agencies in targeting each specific category of consumer with their propaganda.

Whether their professional marketing strategy convinces these targeted audiences that state wildlife agencies are relevant for anything other than pandering to the recreational hunters, trappers, and anglers is yet to be seen.

Unlike other social issues that die a natural death following the loss of public support and appeal, recreational killing is artificially supported by the endless supply of money generated via the Wildlife Restoration Act funding scheme. Coincidentally, making “it” last is clearly in the state and federal wildlife agencies’ best interests.

Meanwhile, wildlife and public land protectionists who work tirelessly defending the public good from state wildlife agency’s political maneuvers, often operate on shoe-string budgets. They cannot afford professional marketing services yet do their best to advance the unspoken, shared campaign of “Making it Stop” – “it” being the agency bureaucracy that routinely favors the destruction of public assets for commercial gain.

AFWA’s toolkit provides guidance to state wildlife agencies regarding campaign design, including video scripts. Since Center for Wildlife Ethics has spent years actively challenging wildlife agencies’ mismanagement of natural resources, fixation on killing, and preferential treatment of hunters, trappers and anglers, we couldn’t resist making a short video—albeit on a much smaller budget—modeled after the “Making it Last” campaign:

* (The trapping community has been left out of this discussion altogether)