Garrick, there is a program similar to the one you mention and is employed by many western states. It's called Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Landowners are compensated for for devoting agricultural land to public hunting. Google it and you'll find all kinds of information about it.

I'm a hunter, NRA member and I hold a federal license as a firearms collector. And I pretty much always vote for Democrats. Liberals generally want to preserve open, wild spaces and conservatives are generally against having the government involved in that. If open, green spaces aren't protected then pretty soon there won't be any place left where I can shoot targets, let alone deer.

Most Democrats don't seem interested in taking anyone's guns away anymore. Just a couple of fringe characters. But if there's no place left where I can shoot, the second amendment won't do me much good.

As I read all the propaganda in the article by Christina Larson, I felt I was being taken for a ride. For instance, she makes the statement: “In November, a Hmong immigrant was sentenced to life in prison for killing six hunters in Wisconsin after a trespassing dispute erupted when he wandered onto their land.”
If you read the accounts that even the mainstream, liberal media reported, he didn`t “wander” onto the land he was trespassing on. It was a common occurrence, since an entire ethnic group in that area held total disregard for land owners, and their rights, and helped themselves to any hunting spot they wanted whenever they wanted. To say he “wandered” onto the land the murders took place on is akin to the media calling Rodney King a “motorist” instead of the fleeing felon he was.

Then the article states: “In American politics, few causes are more potent than those defending threatened heritage symbols. Real or perceived attacks on school prayer, the pledge of allegiance, and the etiquette of saying "Merry Christmas" have all been whipped into political maelstroms. That's largely because conservatives recognized, and then exploited, a latent but largely unorganized anger. A comparable frustration exists among hunters over land access. But conservatives haven't tapped into it because the source of this anxiety isn't a liberal bogeyman, like elitism or big government. Instead, it's the closing-off of private property and sale of public land, something many on the right defend. That means progressives could find themselves in the unexpected position of being the champions of hunters. Those states that have effectively slowed or reversed the hunting decline have done so with programs that use government to open up private lands voluntarily to public recreation. This time, it may be progressive government that holds out the best hope for preserving an American tradition.”

Real or “perceived” attacks on school prayer, and the pledge of allegiance? An extremely subtle way of insinuating that the issue may really be imagined by all us conservatives.
Finally, the author writes: “For the last two years, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) have introduced an "Open Fields" bill. The measure would provide $20 million a year for five years in federal money for states to establish or expand access programs for "hunting, fishing, bird-watching, and related outdoor activities." That any elected official would fail to support such an inexpensive, uncontroversial, and potentially popular bill might be hard to imagine. Yet in both GOP-dominated houses of Congress the measure has garnered nearly twice as many Democratic co-sponsors as Republican, and consequently not gone very far.
As long as the conservative ethos reigns in Washington and in state capitals, then America's hunting, fishing, and outdoors culture will almost certainly continue to decline. The best hope for protecting this heritage probably rests with elected officials of a progressive bent, Republicans as well as Democrats--officials who are ideologically comfortable using government to assert a right bequeathed by America's political forefathers: that wildlife belongs not to private interests but to the public. “

Another seemingly innocuous statement, but one that has deeper implications. To state that demoncrats generally are more supportive of environmentally friendly legislation is extremely misleading, and irresponsible. The platform of the democratic party is extremely anti-gun. If you have any memory of recent political events, you recall that bill clinton was one of the most anti-gun Presidents in modern history. And more recently, john kerry tried, unsuccessfully, to pass himself off as an outdoorsman and hunter. His actual agenda, no surprise to anyone, especially as a politician from the liberal north east, is very anti-gun, and anti gun owner.
I don`t agree with many, many of the environmental policies of the Republican Party, but at least I feel confident the Republican Party isn`t bent on taking away my Second Amendment rights. To those who mistakenly think the Second Amendment is tied to hunting, you are buying into the lie they want you to believe. That without a place to hunt, your firearms are worthless. Be clear on this, the Second Amendment is about anything but hunting. The Founding Fathers understood full well that the republic was safe as long as the common, law abiding man had arms.

Lastly, I would like to encourage all of you to read Charlton Heston’s: “The Courage to Be Free”. It is an extremely profound and thoughtful essay intended to make you think, and to challenge the status quo. To bring us all back to the truth that politically correct is simply the myth of the liberal, mainstream media, and that we need to learn to think for ourselves once again.