On July 3, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Make America Beautiful Again (MABA) Commission, which will focus, in part, on expanding public land access for hunting and encourage wildlife conservation efforts through proactive, voluntary on-the-ground collaborative efforts.
“The United States is blessed with vast beautiful landscapes, abundant natural resources, and a rich heritage of discovery by travelers and outdoorsmen,” the order stated. “America’s national parks, forests, waterways, and public lands have inspired generations and kindled our Nation’s spirit of exploration. To ensure that the next generation of Americans inherits this same sense of duty and adventure, my Administration will prioritize conserving our great American national parks and outdoor recreation areas.”
The commission will be chaired by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy serving as executive director. Members will include the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Agriculture and other Trump Administration officials.
The order comes on the heels of four years of the Biden administration repeatedly attempting to limit Americans’ access to hunt and shoot on federal lands.
“Years of mismanagement, regulatory overreach, and neglect of routine maintenance require action,” the order further stated. “Land-use restrictions have stripped hunters, fishers, hikers, and outdoorsmen of access to public lands that belong to them. These bureaucratic restrictions have undermined outdoor traditions and threatened conservation funding.”
After battling the Biden Administration on this issue for years, the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) welcomed the establishment of the MABA Commission.
“President Trump’s Executive Order continues his commitment to hunters, outdoorsmen, and all that enjoy our nation’s vast outdoor recreation opportunities and resources,” NRA-ILA reported. “Recall that President Trump signed into law the Great American Outdoors Act in August 2020, one the nation’s most significant actions to preserve American wildlife and hunting heritage in decades. The Act provides critical federal funding to address the decaying infrastructure on U.S. public lands and waters as well as opportunities for increased access to public hunting and recreational shooting on millions of acres of federally managed lands.”
Under the new Trump executive order, all federal land management agencies must, to the extent practicable, ensure that their policies promote responsible stewardship of natural resources while driving economic growth, expanding access to public lands and waters for recreation, hunting and fishing, and encourage responsible, voluntary conservation efforts. They must also cut bureaucratic delays that hinder effective environmental management and recover America’s fish and wildlife populations through proactive, voluntary, on-the-ground collaborative conservation efforts.
The commission’s focus will be on conserving America’s national treasures and natural resources, facilitating interagency coordination on conservation efforts, developing policies to recover fish and wildlife populations through collaboration over regulation, and including state wildlife agencies in those efforts.
