FROM NEBRASKA: KESTER RECEIVES PUBLIC LANDS HERO AWARD

Posted by Nebraska BHA Chapter | August 20, 2025

The Nebraska Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers presented their inaugural PUBLIC LANDS HERO award to Adam Kester on August 13^th in North Platte at the southwest regional office of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. The Hero’s Award is presented  to an individual who has provided dedicated and sustained service towards improving access to, and/or increasing the amount of, public lands available for hunters and anglers in the state. The chapter can think of no one more deserving than Adam Kester with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in North Platte.

Here is just a small sample of this Public Lands Hero’s accomplishments. “While Adam was the Private Lands Biologist, he promoted the Open Fields and Waters Program, administered over 100 OFW agreements that included nearly 70,000 acres of access opportunities for hunters and came up with new ideas for how to make the OFW program better for hunters and landowners.  He created the “Canyons Access Initiative” after identifying that “grassland” and “woodland” compensation rates weren’t easy to explain to landowners within that mixed landscape, and that hunting opportunities across the Loess Canyons were similar across a gradient of mixed grassland and woodland habitats.  As the Private Lands District Manager, he also found creative ways to tie habitat management incentives and access incentives together through the Berggren Pheasant Plan to increase OFW enrollments of pheasant habitat in the Southwest and South-Central Focus on Pheasants areas. Now as the Access Program Manager, Kester has developed the Elk Hunter Access Program (nearly 60,000 acres for the upcoming season in 4 different elk units) and continues to grow the OFW program (over 235,000 acres in 2024-25 season).”

We could go on and on about Adam Kester but readers get the picture. We are all fortunate in Nebraska to have Kester working tirelessly for the hunting and fishing public.    

📷 credit: Julie Geiser/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission