Still waiting for someone to tell me what BHA has actually accomplished (on their own, not on the coat-tails of RMEF or Trout Unlimited).
Lots of praise for an organization that doesn't have a single accomplishment to its name outside of some local stream cleanup.
I went to their website again, plenty of fancy slogans and saying why I should donate, but zero results/accomplishments posted.
What public land/water access have they secured? Serious question, as that is their stated mission.
A lot of BHA accomplishments are done with partners and stakeholders, but BHA works mostly in the policy realm. So instead of some of the hang your hat on a piece land type projects, its more of a grassroots mobilization of voters, citizens, local residents, to make their voices heard or support/fight against a certain piece of policy.
For instance, The Montana Wildlife Federation was at the table with MT BHA for nearly all the same issues this year at the Montana Legislature (143, 505, and 607 were some of the more well known bills). I wouldn't say one group deserves more credit than the other, they both used their membership/lobbying/marketing or some combination of to get word out about these bills and then provided a way for people to provide comment and oppose. RMEF, MDF, WSF, NWTF, were no where to be found on most of those bills, basically BHA and Wildlife Federation lead that charge for hunters.
Here in ND, its been a very similar situation. There's been a number of bills in the last couple legislative sessions that have been trying to sell public land, build roads in non-motorized areas, transfer public land to the state (which has sold 75% of it's state land). Again, its basically been BHA and the wildlife federation tying to mobilize residents and fight against these bills. There was a bill that would have essentially strong armed the USFS through backroom political dealings to build roads on all non-motorized areas in the Little MIssouri National Grasslands (multiple attempts through bills and rider language). Basically the last 20% of untouched ground in ND and home to 38,000 acres of "Suitable for Wilderness" in the Badlands. That bill would have completely destroyed those designations. We're talking the best habitat for elk and Mule deer in the entire state. But RMEF and MDF were no where to be seen(not saying they don't do some good work in other areas). BHA lead the initiative to let ND residents know about these bills and provided an avenue for them to contact their representatives and oppose the bill. NDBHA met with Senator Cramer about these issues. BHA worked with the the wildlife federation on USFS managment plan revisions in a Draft SEIS here in ND. Again, a major management provision for the direction the USFS takes in managing FS land. Message me and I'd be happy to send you a copy of all the of comments we submitted for this and other scoping or plan revision public comment periods. But, It was BHA and the wildlife federation at the table, none of the other major conservation orgs were involved. This isn't to throw rocks at them, it's to try and highlight that there is a different role for these groups to play.
I'm not 100% up to speed on the details, but I believe the Colorado Chapter had some significant contributions into opening up 500k acres of Trust land in Colorado. There were of course other groups that partnered with this though and I believe this was a significant investment in time from all groups, a few years or more.
So, you have to change the lens you're using when comparing BHA to a group like RMEF, it's not apples to apples. Just to try and boil it down to a generalized and simple comparison. RMEF focuses on buying land/easements They've done that to the tune of like 8 million acres I think, so they've done good work. BHA focuses on policy and specifically policy that protects or affects the existing 640 million acres of public land that already exists.
