That's rather a simplistic view. Hunting reserves exist to protect the land from development so that there will be places where it is possible to hunt and game available to harvest. The important distinction isn't the one between 'hunting reserve' and 'wilderness'; it's the one between 'reserve land' and 'suburbia.'
In most of the conservation lands in my part of the world, hunting is permitted, even encouraged, because it is necessary to thin the herds. Since humanity drove the wolf and cougar into extinction in my part of the world a century and a half ago (and so far will not allow the wolf to be reintroduced, even in strictly protected wilderness), hunting is necessary to avoid ecological collapse from overpopulation of the larger game species, notably the white-tailed deer, the black bear, and local nonmigratory populations of geese. Most of the hunters that I know understand very well the value of conservation, and few would say that hunting reserves exist for the primary purpose of supporting hunting. The state not only owns lands for this purpose, but also encourages this style of management on the part of private landowners. My brother gets substantial tax breaks on the farm he owns because my family has allowed it to return to woodland. (It hasn't been farmed since the Dust Bowl years.) In return, he's required both to refrain from farming it and to refrain from subdividing or developing. He is permitted the occasional timber harvest (the plan for which must be approved by a forester) and to use the land for hunting (he's not much of a hunter, but leases the hunting rights to a club), fishing, and recreation (a snowmobile/ATV trail crosses his acreage). Given that the state is compensating him to conserve his land and practice sustainable forestry, how is his private preserve not conservation land? Does the fact that people pay the club to hunt on the club's leaseholds (an area much larger than my brother's farm) change the nature of my brother's conservation easement? His deal with the government is typical. A lot of people get something out of it. New York City gets better water quality in the Watsonville reservoir. A few hunters, fishermen, and snowmobilists get a place to recreate. The National Park Service gets protection of the Delaware River viewshed. The poor soil that remains is stabilized against further erosion and gradually rebuilt by the natural processes that have been going on since it was denuded in the last ice age. Brook trout and shad find a place to spawn. Several threatened bird species have been sighted on his property. Most important to him, he can afford the taxes to continue living in the place. Without the conservation easement, he'd have been forced to sell to a developer and move back to the city years ago. Nature reserves are managed for many purposes, and enjoy greater and lesser levels of protection. New York is fortunate enough to have them in abundance. Some are enormous and strictly protected (e.g., High Peaks Wilderness). Some are tiny (as small as a few city blocks of wetland in New York City). Some belong to Federal, State and local governments. Some are in private hands - the International Paper tract in Arietta township is the largest. (It allows public access for recreation anywhere that active logging is not taking place, and it takes a forester's eye to distinguish it from the adjacent Jessup River Wild Forest.) Some belong to conservancies (and for complicated legal reasons, sometimes it is convenient for New York to pay conservancies to acquire and manage land). Some allow only the most passive of activities (access by foot, ski, and canoe, in terrain that only fit and experienced outdoor recreationists will tackle). Some restrict only development and allow motorized recreation, timber harvest, and low-density habitation. All are popularly known as 'nature reserves' of one sort or another. I daresay that around here, few people can make the distinction, for instance, between Wilderness Area, Wild Forest, State Forest, State Wildlife Management Area, and even State Park. To the tourist, they look identical - they all have the same style of brown-and-gold signs, they are all open to the public, they are all mostly forested (because that's the natural state of most land in the local ecosystem), they all belong to the state and are policed by the rangers, .... The fact that they are managed for different primary objectives and fall under different regulatory schemes is secondary - most people deal with the regulation by following what the signage proclaims. (State Wildlife Management Area, by the way, is a newer title for what used to be called State Game Reserves. They are very much hunting preserves.) I see 'leisure=nature_reserve" as an interim measure to get something on the map when its full legalities are not understood, and I also continue to tag it because otherwise a great many of our public recreation areas would not appear on the rendered map at all. It's not so much 'tagging for the renderer' as it is adapting to an imprecise data model while the world catches up to the more specific one (boundary=protected_area). Since I ALSO tag with boundary=protected_area (and at least protect_class and protection_object), I'm supporting the more precise data model as well. At such time as protected_area is adequately supported in the rest of the toolchain, I can remove the nature_reserve tag from areas that are considered inappropriate for it by a simple mechanical edit based on protect_class. If, as you say, this is 'wrong,' then offer a concrete proposal for what is right - and a concrete plan for making it actually usable. I'm not satisfied with the answer that I must wait for the renderer to catch up. If US mappers had not resorted to nature_reserve tagging for such entities as US National Forests (even more obviously not 'nature reserve's by your definition) they would not appear on the map. That situation has been at an impasse for at least a couple of years. It's in with a large bucket of rendering change requests that are deferred because they 'need hstore.' And 'hstore' itself is being intentionally delayed (so one of the maintainers casually remarked to me) precisely so that the people who maintain the renderer will not be deluged with nuisance change requests. Hearing that dispelled my last sense of guilt at 'tagging for the renderer' in cases where there is no formally correct tagging that renders. I'd rather use tags _sensu lato_ and see my work on the map than have the Adirondack Park disappear from the map because it is not a 'national park' _sensu stricto._ And in every case where I have 'tagged for the renderer', I have additional tagging that would enable the finer distinction to be made moving forward. I render my own maps for the places that matter most to me, but I'm not tooled up to offer them to the whole world. That's really the best I have to offer. Nobody's reverted it yet. For all that people on this list tell me that I'm 'wrong,' nobody seems to have a better idea.
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