Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow (CLfT) is a professional development program designed for student and professional leaders within the natural resource sciences. CLfT focuses on conservation education and hunting awareness among academic programs and government agencies. CLfT consists of 4-day workshops that blend interactive classroom discussion with field experiences. Workshop participants engage with leading natural resource professionals and conservationists in a highly interactive educational setting.
Our goal — to identify future and current leaders of the natural resource profession who do not hunt and provide them with an understanding of the diverse values and important roles of hunting and its impact on conservation.
Today, about half of students graduating with wildlife degrees have never hunted and know little about it or the reasons why people hunt. These students will be among the next generation of natural resource managers.
CLfT is not intended to recruit or train the participants to be hunters. Instead, the objective is to provide participant with insights into why hunting is important from biological, social, cultural, economic and recreational standpoints— and its role in conservation.
To achieve these objectives, the 4-day workshops blend interactive roundtable discussions and field exercises. The CLfT instructors are wildlife conservation professionals who are veteran hunters. These professionals mentor the students and facilitate the roundtable discussions; and they teach and coach the hands-on field exercises.
The only cost to participants is a few days of their time. Lodging, food and transportation are provided. The few days will provide career-building benefits that are invaluable. It also is a resume- and character-building adventure that truly has a lifelong impact.
If this next generation of natural resource professionals does not understand the roles, values, motivations and satisfactions derived from hunting, they will be unprepared to manage wildlife effectively.
Please let us know if you are interested in developing or participating in a CLfT program. Contact info@clft.org.
