Punta Allen, Mexico. Photo: YDCCF
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust Silver Partner Yellow Dog Community and Conservation Foundation (YDCCF) has announced a new initiative: The Lodge Partner Program. Since its inception in 2106, YDCCF has helped give back to angling communities throughout the world by funding numerous grassroots, locally driven projects. To date, the Foundation has invested more than $1.5 million to help preserve, protect, and enhance the fisheries and the fishing communities that matter to anglers.
From the very beginning, YDDCF was built on relationships formed by Yellow Dog Flyfishing over the last 25 years: direct connections with more than 250 lodges and outfitters in dozens of different countries. YDCCF is the only organization of its kind with this deep network of partnerships and relationships on the ground, facilitating impactful work and results. In the current fragile environment, destination angling must include stewardship, and YDCCF exists to be the conduit for anglers to help. Every time a client books a trip with Yellow Dog Flyfishing, a percentage is donated to YDCCF to help fund this vital work.
The YDCCF Lodge Partner Program is designed to allow lodges and outfitters to join in contributing to projects in their community by donating directly to YDCCF. In many cases, these partnerships have already been generating results in angling communities for years: places like Punta Allen on the Yucatan Peninsula, the pristine flats of Belize and the Bahamas, and the remote steppes of Mongolia. Each Lodge Partner is deeply invested in ensuring their community is responsible, resourceful, and dedicated to providing not only amazing experiences for traveling anglers, but also fulfilling existences and livelihoods for the residents of their community. Each of these places is special because of the people that live there, and working to constantly enhance the lives of the people in these communities is what YDCCF was created to do.
YDCCF has already partnered with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust on the Bahamas Mangrove Restoration Project, providing $20k in funding for this year’s replantings. YDCCF Executive Director Brooks Scott shared: “Partnering with BTT makes so much sense for YDCCF. Where BTT’s focus and expertise is on science, YDCCF’s is on community. These two things go hand-in-hand when you are talking about how to preserve and protect the flats environment.” Scott added that YDCCF is hoping to build a long-term partnership and plan with BTT to focus on a number of shared goals, including guide recruiting, education and retention in the Bahamas, preservation and enforcement of the existing gillnet ban in Belize, and ongoing best practices education for fish handling across the saltwater fishing landscape.
