Flathead Land Trust’s Flathead River Conservation Project  protects open space in the heart of the Flathead Valley and water quality of the Flathead River and Flathead Lake. The Flathead River and Flathead Lake are rare gems unmatched anywhere else in the western United States and this important conservation helps keep them that way.

It also adds protection to a critical puzzle piece that is adjacent to 725 acres and near 2,350 acres of land that is already conserved, securing a much larger connected piece of landscape along the lower Flathead River.

A plethora of wildlife use the project property and threatened bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout, a species of special concern, use waters adjacent to the project property. Thousands of waterfowl use not only the river and wetlands on the project property, but also its farmland to feed and refuel on their migration. The conservation easement will keep rich soils identified as “prime farmland” or “farmland of statewide importance” by the Natural Resource Conservation Service in agriculture. The family has been farming and stewarding this wildlife-rich land for almost 100 years.