Help Fight for Balanced Conservation

The world doesn’t realize that many sportsmen are passionate about conserving natural resources. We probably provide more funding for wildlife-related programs than any other single group.

Most of us realize conservation must involve a balanced approach, and that compromise is often needed to build alliances.

The Nature Conservancy is one of my favorite conservation organizations because it works effectively with other organizations, including sportsmen and wildlife agencies, as it quietly, effectively, finds ways to protect and preserve some of the last best land in the world.

Now The Nature Conservancy is a key player in a new organization called Utah Conservation Forum. Other participants include Sportsmen For Fish and Wildlife, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Utah Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, Utah Open Lands, and The Trust For Public Land.

The Utah Conservation Forum is non-partisan and will serve as an information clearing house and resource for people and organizations interested in preserving and enhancing Utah's land and water and in maintaining and increasing public funding for conservation projects throughout the State of Utah. The Forum will publish an email newsletter as part of its campaign to disseminate information. The first newsletter went out yesterday. You can read it here.

A consulting group called Exoro is working with the Forum. Exoro specializes in government relations consulting and in leveraging information technology. I do some web development work for Exoro and so I had the opportunity to build the website for UCF, and also program their newsletter. We put the site together quickly and I think it turned out well. It is a good cause and I was happy to be involved.

I hope you will read their newsletter and be involved in working to protect and enhance Utah’s wildlife and wild places.

- Dave

Snowmobiles and Winter Desert Hikes

I do email newsletters for several organizations including these two I’ve just completed for utah.com.

Come Snowmobile Utah

Needles, Rivers and Grand Solitude

I’m pleased with how they turned out.

Utah.com is the state’s travel/tourism website, and my employer, so I spend a good part of my life writing, shooting photos and developing other content for that website.

The snowmobile newsletter is designed to sell people on the idea of snowmobiling here. The goal is to get some of our ski tourists to consider a snowmobile adventure, since our snowmobile trails are every bit as good as our famous ski runs. It will be interesting to see what response we get.

Every month I write a newsletter to help people plan national park trips. For December I described the fun, relatively easy hike to the Confluence Overlook in Canyonlands. It is a great winter hike because the trail stays on top the mesa where you have sunshine.

I love to hike around Moab/Canyonlands/Arches, and hiking conditions are ideal in the spring and fall. But the area gets crowded during those prime months. More and more, I find myself going there in winter because I enjoy the solitude. I’ve hiked on many a sunny day in January when the air temperature reached 50 and it was downright pleasant.

Of course, there are also stormy and cold days. You just have to watch the weather and take advantage of the mild spells.

I’ve got one more big project to finish and then maybe I’ll have time to write about my recent horseback adventure in Monument Valley. It was great fun.

- Dave