UTAH'S RANGE AND NATURAL RESOURCE CAMP, INFLUENCING PARTICIPANTS TO SELECT LAND MANAGEMENT CAREERS
Natural Resources/Aquaculture
Randall Violett
RMAL Associate Director
University of Wyoming
Laramie
Abstract
Roughly three-quarters of Utah is publicly owned land. The overlap of rangelands and this ownership pattern is predominantly coincidental. Because the bulk of the public-owned rangelands are under federal control, decisions on their use and management will continue to not be made by the citizens of Utah alone. Hence, the stewardship of federal lands will be increasingly driven by issues on the national agenda. Since the viability of local enterprises depends on access to these federal lands, it behooves all to better understand where different kinds of rangelands are located, who controls them, and how these differing ecosystems are put together, function, and change under alternative management scenarios. The Utah Section of the Society for Range Management (SRM) has spent the past 49 years promoting and educating the youth of the state so that they will step into these federal management roles and take into consideration the state’s best interest. The development of a youth range and natural resource camp in 1973 was the beginning of this effort. Today the question is, how effective has this effort been? A survey was developed and given the past three years to the camp participants, it revealed that 44% of the campers are planning to seek a college degree in some area of natural resource management. Though impressive in terms of meeting the future needs, an instrument has been developed to determine the effectiveness of the past ten years. The results of this long term survey will be shared to illustrate the effectiveness of youth camps on career selection by the participants.
Authors: Randall Violett
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Randall Violett Extension Assistant Professor, Utah State University, Utah, 84721