Federal funding for natural resources and the environment continues to erode and presently accounts for less than one percent of overall federal discretionary spending. In addition, pass-through funds from federal excise taxes paid by anglers, hunters, and recreational shooters fall increasingly short of help state fish and wildlife agencies meet their base needs for conserving fish and wildlife. Priorities include:

• Provide adequate base funding to federal land management agencies to enable them to meet their legislative mandates to sustain fish and wildlife populations, provide access for fishing and other recreation, deliver ecosystem services to communities, and allow careful, science-informed development that helps sustain the country’s economy. Lack of funding, ongoing litigation, conflicting policy changes, and other factors have paralyzed federal land management and reduced agencies’ capacity to manage the lands under their care.

• Protect existing dedicated funding—exempt Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration funds from mandatory spending accounts that are subject to budget sequestration.

• Increase funding and capacity for education, management, and prevention to combat priority aquatic invasive species in partnership with the states.

Access to fishing and hunting is the #1 concern of sportsmen and women nationwide and public lands provide much of that access. Unfortunately, access is repeatedly cited as a prime limiting factor associated with fishing and hunting participation—a recent survey of anglers found that 27 percent listed access to water as the biggest problem facing fishing today.

• Maintain and increase access opportunities to federal lands; invest in infrastructure that supports recreational access; and provide updated and easily-accessible mapping systems to make it clear where federal lands are open for access.

More than two-thirds of the land area in the United States is privately owned. Whether or not these lands are managed to conserve fish and wildlife, and whether they are available for access is answered by the question, “Do landowners benefit by managing for fish, wildlife, and recreation?”

• Incentivize habitat conservation and improved fish passage on private lands by offering cost-shares and grants to landowners and producers that improve both their bottom line and the quality of fish and wildlife habitat on their land.

• Fully fund and implement conservation programs authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill and encourage landowner participation in CRP, ACEP, EQIP, and other programs.

AFFTA has undertaken a rigorous process to identify and better understand the primary threats to healthy marine fisheries and habitats, and to determine policy solutions capable of addressing these threats head-on. AFFTA worked with conservation partners to convene a Blue Ribbon panel, comprised of top scientists and managers in their respective fields, to identify the most critical threats to the sustainability of our marine fisheries. Please see the above tab for more information.

It is becoming increasingly evident that climate change is a fundamental economic threat as well as an environmental one. As such, climate change poses an unprecedented systemic risk to our economy and poses a potent risk multiplier of unknown strength. As the Biden Administration contemplates its response to climate change, attention to ocean health is paramount as warming ocean temperatures, acidification, shrinking ice sheets, and rising sea levels all attest. Oceans are a source of vast offshore renewable energy potential while coastal ecosystems are capable of absorbing carbon at rates up to four times those of terrestrial forests. Priorities include:

• Establish a pathway to protecting 30 percent of ocean habitats protected inside U.S. waters in four years and participate in the efforts to develop and enact a “Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act in the 117th Congress.

• Work with coastal states to increase the size and distribution of seagrass beds through continued improvement of water quality and proactive plantings.

• Direct all appropriate branches of the federal government to undertake immediate action to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing inside and outside the U.S.

During the Trump Administration, a series of administrative decisions have been made that directly countermand the thoughtful decisions of on-the-ground managers and the best available science. Examples of administrative actions that can be rolled back include:

• Reapply the roadless rule to protect the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

• Reinstate the protection of small streams under the Clean Water Act.

• Restore regulation of incidental taking and killing of migratory birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.