Flathead Land Trust, the Trust for Public Land, Stoltze Land & Lumber and a cooperative landowner partner to produce 1,100 acres of wildlife conservation, public access and sustainable timber production north of Whitefish. Flathead Land Trust and Stoltze recently led local tours of the property, which is protected by a conservation easement.
Ten outdoor recreation groups working in the Gallatin County area and beyond — including Gallatin Valley Land Trust— have teamed up to launch “Outside Kind”, a campaign designed to “share best practices, principles and tips for enjoying the outdoors together.”
The effort reflects the growing awareness from several outdoor recreation and nature organizations that community and nature trails are seeing increased use and in some cases increasing conflicts.
“For years, and particularly in the last year and half, we’ve seen growing pressure on the trails throughout our region. This alliance reminds us that through kindness and respect for one-another, we can all enjoy our shared outdoor spaces, regardless of whether we like to hike, run or bike the trails,” says Chet Work, executive director at the Gallatin Valley Land Trust.
The primary goal of Outside Kind is to share best practices, principles and tips for enjoying the outdoors together. Whether you wish to encourage your friends and family or visiting guests to hike kind, ride kind, ski kind, wag kind, etc., Outside Kind offers the community consistent and clear guidelines around outdoor activities and positive local ethics.
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Stimson Lumber Company — with key project support from The Trust for Public Land — is proposing a 27,000-acre conservation easement on forestlands held by Stimson through the Phase II Kootenai Forestland Conservation Project near Libby.
The proposed project is in FWP’s public review process, with a public hearing set for Libby the evening of July 14.
The project would produce many benefits, including sustainable forest management, public access and recreation, wildlife habitat conservation, wood products industry jobs retention and more.
From the Flathead Beacon article:
“Completion of this project would build on the success of the nearby Forest Legacy Program-funded 142,000-acre Thompson-Fisher Conservation Easement, the 28,000-acre Kootenai Valleys Conservation Easement, and the 22,295-acre Kootenai Forestlands Phase I Conservation Easement, which was the first phase of this project,” according to a press release from FWP. “Forest Legacy projects in Montana and Idaho have cumulatively helped to conserve over 300,000 acres of working forestlands that remain in private ownership while securing permanent public access and habitat conservation.”
The Montana Association of Land Trusts will be celebrating National Forest Week during the next five days. Forest health is incredibly important to Montana’s economic strength, recreation opportunities, wildlife habitat and much more.
Conservation easements were the main topic, and Kendall Van Dyk of the Montana Land Reliance was the main guest, on a recent episode of the Montana Ag Live show on Montana PBS.
Professor emeritus Jack Riesselman of Montana State University served as host of the show, and other panelists in addition to Van Dyk were Mary Burrows, MSU Extension Plant Pathologist; Dan Bigelow, MSU Extension Resource Agricultural Economist; and Mac Burgess, with MSU’s Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology department. The show featured opportunities for call-in questions and Van Dyk fielded the most questions, with conservation easement topics including perpetuity, conservation easement terms and restrictions, purpose of conservation easements, landowner motivations for easement creation, federal and state easement programs and more.
Screenshot: Riesselman (left) and Van Dyk
Bitter Root Land Trust’s “Keep It Bitterroot” campaign is all about the present, and addressing concerns now to improve the future. A featured article in the Ravalli Republic outlines the campaign, which is a direct response to current and dramatic population pressures in the Bitterroot and the value of maintaining the valley’s agricultural, recreational and open land heritage.
From the article: “People have realized that this is one of the best places in the world to live, but that rapid growth puts a real stress on our way of life and all the things that make this place so incredible and such a wonderful place to live,” said Bitter Land Trust executive director Gavin Ricklefs. “At some level right now, it feels like conservation in the valley is a race against time.”
Lauren Rennaker, the trust’s development director, said the “Keep it Bitterroot” fundraising campaign is driven by the fact that families are asking for help in conserving their land.
“We have landowners who are seeing all this change and realizing that they want to protect their land before it’s too late,” Rennaker said. “They are coming to us and saying we are ready to do this. Right now, we have a couple of dozen landowners who are interested in conserving their land.”
“Keep it Bitterroot means protecting our natural environment, but also our small town Montana lifestyle as well,” said Bryan Dufresne, a Darby teacher and land trust Next Generation committee member. “We want to continue to enjoy the very reason we live here for years to come.” Check out the Keep It Bitterroot video here.
The Vital Ground Foundation has long focused on human and bear conflict prevention, and among Vital Ground’s conservation partners in that prevention effort for 2021 is Flathead Land Trust.
Vital Ground recently announced its 2021 conservation partner awards, and award recipients reflect a broad geography and a broad diversity of projects or programs to reduce human and bear conflicts. Vital Ground presents the 15 award recipients and their efforts on the Vital Ground Website under a headline of Coexistence Work Helps Grizzlies and People Share Landscapes.
Gallatin Valley Land Trust , the Gallatin County Open Lands Program, the NRCS ALE Program and local farmer Bruce Visser partnered on a conservation easement that conserves nearly 400 acres of prime farmland and pushed GVLT above the 50,000-acre mark for conserved acres.
“The Visser Farm is a productive working farm in an area of intense development pressure,” GVLT Lands Program Manager Chad Klinkenborg said. “The area has some of the best soil in the state of Montana and represents the open landscape of the Gallatin Valley. We had to protect it.”
The Bruce Visser Farm Conservation Easement represents GVLT’s 117th conservation easement for a grand total of 50,007 acres conserved. The 50,000 acres conserved milestone is a significant achievement for GVLT, and the Gallatin Valley.
Photo: GVLT/ Sarah Lowe
Montana Senator Steve Daines and key Members of Congress have introduced new federal legislation designed to stop the abusive syndication of conservation easement tax benefits.
S 2256, the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act, was introduced by Daines and Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) in the Senate. An identical bill, HR 4164, was introduced in the House by Representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Mike Kelly (R-PA), which makes the effort to stop the abusive syndicated transactions both bipartisan and bicameral.
“Montana farmers and ranchers work hard to conserve our lands while scam artists are taking advantage of the conservation easement program,” Daines said. “This type of abuse cannot continue. My bipartisan bill will go after bad actors and help save taxpayers billions of dollars while promoting conservation across the nation.”
MALT and its members are grateful for Senator Daines’ leadership on this issue.
The 2021 version of the Integrity Act is a slightly new and improved version from previous years. The Integrity Act is also the Land Trust Alliance’s top federal policy priority. The Alliance’s Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act Toolkit contains a wealth of information about the scope of the syndication problem—a $36 billion scope between 2010 and 2018—tips for advocacy, and informational resources.
The Integrity Act came close to passing in late 2020 during a lame duck session of Congress, but ultimately was not attached to any of the COVID or legislative stimulus packages. It is clear that syndicators will not stop until they are stopped, and it appears it will require IRS enforcement and congressional legislation to stop them.
Sen. Steve Daines
Douglas Chadwick, environmental writer, Vital Ground Foundation board member and Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Advisory Board member, has just released a new book titled Four-Fifths a Grizzly.
The title, as you might expect, refers to the understanding that humans have a “surprisingly close relationship with grizzly bears, sharing 80 percent of our DNA.”
The book is available on the Vital Ground Foundation website, and features an engaging series of personal essays that illustrate “the interconnectedness of nature, advocating that the path toward conservation begins with how we see our place in the world.”
Chadwick lives in Whitefish and is the author of 14 books about wildlife and wild places. Chadwick and Four-Fifths a Grizzly were also recently featured in a Flathead Beacon article.
