Our core belief is that sportswomen can and should be leading the conservation world – we all stand to benefit from their expertise as women on the land and the water, their confidence and courage, their strength and perseverance, and their unwavering dedication to maintaining healthy wildlife and the environments they live in.
Artemis is poised to address the most current and pressing conservation issues of our time, thanks to our status as a program of the National Wildlife Federation, which has led the nation’s conservation work for nearly a century. NWF provides a foundation from which the women of Artemis can build their leadership in conservation, and gives them learning opportunities and a platform from which they can be heard.
Our Ambassadors frequently hold conservation events, and are encouraged to engage in NWF’s broader work as a conservation organization. For example, our Ambassadors in Alaska continue to hold “Crafting for Conservation” events, where they discuss topics like wetlands conservation while creating an art project. More examples of Ambassador events and conservation activities are included here.
The Artemis Women’s Hunt Lease is a 1,700 acre hunt lease available to women in Tennessee and the surrounding region, managed by one of our Ambassadors. Lease members and event participants have the opportunity to learn a variety of hunting skills and harvest deer, turkey, rabbits, and more; put invasive species management into practice by reducing hog populations; build confidence in hunting skills, such as blind and stand installation, food plot implementation, and game camera placement; learn year-round land management practices, such as prescribed burns, heavy equipment operation, and brush removal; and build community with other women hunters. The lease currently has 12 members, has hosted 125 guest hunters, and has held 21 events. The lease is also home to a cozy primitive camp site the women lease members have built, including a kitchen tent complete with a sink, canvas tents with cots and wood stoves, an outdoor heated shower, and outhouse.
Says Kelly Ott, one of our Ambassadors and a Deer Camp attendee, “The lease is such an awesome opportunity for women to be able to go somewhere in a safe environment and learn. So much about providing opportunity in hunting is providing a place to do it…having access to the land is a huge part of that. You can’t mentor if you don’t have a place to do it, and the lease certainly solves a big part of that.” Many of the participants shared similar feelings, and also reiterated that Artemis’s hunt lease provides them with critical access to hunting lands and a women’s hunting community that would not exist for them otherwise, and has given them opportunities to learn skills they could not have gained elsewhere.
Artemis staff and partners also routinely uplift sportswomen as sporting and conservation leaders through active participation in relevant working groups, advocacy campaigns, and strategic partnerships. If you are involved in conservation work and would like to partner with us or our Ambassadors, let us know!
