News Release                                                                                    Contact:          Ben Gregg
For Immediate Release                                                                                             803-256-0670
February 20, 2008                                                                                                      ben@scwf.org

Camo Coalition Forms to Defend South Carolina’s Outdoor Heritage

Partner groups represent over 100,000 hunters and anglers

COLUMBIA - Seventeen fishing and hunting organizations announced they will begin working together to protect South Carolina’s outdoor legacy.  These are many of the state’s largest and best-known sportsmen’s organizations, representing over 100,000 members statewide.  The partnership will be known as the South Carolina Camo Coalition, Partners working to Conserve Fish and Wildlife.

Formation of the Camo Coalition was announced Tuesday at the State House in Columbia with Dr. Jim Rex, State Superintendent of Education and about 15 legislators in attendance.  Earlier in the day, the seventeen groups endorsed a Charter stating “there is a need for today’s conservation leaders to unify their collective strength and apply it to common challenges to protect water bodies, riparian zones, and wildlife habitat and the hunting, trapping and fishing heritage.

According to Ben Gregg, executive director of the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, “there is strength in numbers, and this coalition represents over 100,000 outdoorsmen in South Carolina.  The economic numbers can not be ignored either.  Over one-half million of the state’s residents hunt and/or fish. Spending by palmetto sportsmen totals almost two billion dollars annually, and this shot in the arm is especially critical in strapped rural areas of the state.”

Specific challenges that the Camo Coalition intend to address are loss of habitat, decreased access to recreational land and waters, invasive species on the increase, climate change, the loss of connection between young people and the out-of-doors and finally, the need for natural resource management decisions to be made by qualified professionals.

The Camo Coalition arose out of a meeting back in April when outdoor leaders from the different organizations sat around the table to discuss future challenges and realized it was time to mobilize as partners.  According to                                                              

Gregg, “anglers and hunters are without exception dependent and self-reliant, and our structure reflects those traits.  Each organization will retain their own sovereignty, and the Coalition will focus on the ‘universal’ issues that bind us together as an outdoors community.”

The South Carolina Camo Coalition is modeled on a similar effort in Georgia.  Formed several years ago, Georgia Camo now has about 25, 000 members who are alerted when important legislative or policy issues are being decided.  Like Georgia, SC Camo membership will be free.

A copy of the SC Camo charter and the logos of the seventeen charter organizations are attached.

For more information about the Camo Coalition, call Ben Gregg at (803) 256-0670 or e-mail ben@scwf.org.

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