BLM-Arizona, Tread Lightly! Sonoran Landscape Project ASO

Description of Program and/or Project a. Background: In response to an increasing trend of public lands being closed as a resolution to issues and conflicts arising from recreational shooting activities, the Department of Interiorâ¿¿s Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council recommended the BLM enter into a assistive partnership to develop and implement a corrective action education campaign for recreation shooting enthusists in an effort to mitigate and resolve conflicts prior to closures becoming necessary. In June 2012 BLM joined the USFS and Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) in partnerships coordinated by Tread Lightly! to address proposed recreational shooting issues surrounding the Phoenix metro area region. The project is called the Sonoran Landscape project and it involves several partners committed to positively managing and effecting the impacts of recreational shooting on the local desert landscape. b.Objectives: Evolve the Respected Access is Open Access education campaign into a full-fledged, systematic and persuasive communications and outreach initiative to motivate positive changes in behaviors to influence a cultural change within the recreational shooting sports community toward a stronger sense of individual stewardship of shared and respected access to public lands, beginning with a pilot project actively managing recreational shooting across Arizonaâ¿¿s Sonoran landscape through a public/private partnership.