Over the years I have worked for a couple of conservation groups and the state fish and wildlife agency. Since adding legislative work to my duties for the Maine Professional Guides Association last winter I have had opportunities to work on issues that also involved various conservation and environmental groups.
Their discomfort with working guides has become crystal clear to me; as if earning a living outdoors was somehow not appropriate. This thinking has been communicated in a dozen ways from outwardly calling guides “dirty” to forming and funding their own “guides” group.
To me we should be natural partners since a guides living is directly tied to and based on the very things these groups seek to protect and enhance. I have begun to wonder if in fact the real issue is that many of these folks think that people living or working on the conserved landscape is not acceptable.
This is especially troubling now that so much of our state is conserved either by ownership or some type of conservation easement. If the actual goal is to prevent “commercial” use of these regions the economic future is indeed bleak for guides and our state as a whole.
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