Last week, Secretary Ryan Zinke deferred the oil and gas leases on 17,300 acres near Livingston and in the foothills of the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains, citing the cultural and economic significance of the surrounding area. Despite this positive step forward, oil and gas lease sales around the state marched forward today. The sale included one lease adjacent to the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument which sold for $2/acre. Many other similarly cheap leases were squarely in the middle of crucial big game winter range and priority sage-grouse habitat.
Secretary Zinke, who has yet to hire a BLM Director, offered the public barely any opportunity to weigh in around today’s lease sales. While we were all heartened to see a few areas saved, it is irresponsible for the Secretary to unilaterally decide to protect some landscapes and endanger others with similar irreplaceable cultural and recreational resources, not to mention super big game and critical sage grouse habitat, as well as important water resources on a whim.
Future generations of Montanans deserve the same opportunities we’ve had to access and enjoy Central and Eastern Montana’s unique landscapes. This area is simply too important to be sold to the highest bidder for oil and gas drilling.Secretary Zinke must uphold the Department’s multiple-use mandate, and protect the cultural, recreational, water and wildlife resources that are critical to local communities and our outdoor heritage.
Public lands leave a mark on one’s soul. I’ve laid on my back, feeling the dirt and grass cradle my tired body, and looked into an ever-expansive sky giving new meaning to the name, Big Sky Country. Hunters, hikers, birdwatchers, photographers, and anglers all gather on public lands like the Missouri River Breaks to experience these singular moments of clarity, to reconnect with their humanity, and to leave little more grounded than when they came.
And yet, our public lands are currently under the single greatest coordinated attack they have ever undergone. Earlier this year, Secretary Zinke unilaterally decided to review national monuments and since then, Secretary Zinke, Senator Daines, and Representative Gianforte have increased their efforts to remove permeant protection from legally designated public lands. These actions have largely come as top-down memorandums with little public input from the users of these lands.
We must remember that “Our duty to the whole…bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations, ”Theodore Roosevelt. If we care about the future of our public lands, now is the time to remind our politicians that it is their duty to help us protect our public land legacy.
Today, Rep. Greg Gianforte introduced a pair of bills to repeal protections for 700,000 acres of wilderness study areas managed by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Under Rep. Gianforte’s bills, these public lands would be subject to expanded motorized use, mining, oil and gas development, and other industrial activities that would degrade wildlife habitat and close off public access.
The public lands targeted by Rep. Gianforte’s bill provide habitat for fish and wildlife and opportunities for Montanans to hunt, fish, camp, and hike. These places are not just abstractions, they are real places to real people.
Montanans know that the best way to make public land management decisions is for stakeholders to work together and have real, transparent conversations. That approach works, and Montanans know it because we have lived it. It is disappointing that Rep. Gianforte would introduce legislation affecting 700,000 acres of Montana’s public lands without holding a single public meeting. Instead of top-down, one-size-fits-all political fixes, our elected officials should be listening to Montanans.
This project would protect in perpetuity more than 15,000 acres of private ranchland from development, and keep it in a working cattle operation. It would forever open up nearly 20,000 acres of private and public land to quality hunting for mule deer, white-tailed deer, antelope and upland birds. And it would still allow the holder of the mineral rights to responsibly develop those rights while giving the landowner a seat at the table to ensure it’s well planned and thoughtful.
The whole proposal would be paid for largely with hunter license dollars through Habitat Montana, one of our state’s most successful conservation and access programs. It’s truly an exemplary project that won the unanimous support of the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission this month. But last week the state Land Board kicked the can down the road and delayed Horse Creek. Please contact the board and tell members to support this easement that supports our agricultural economy, our wildlife, and our hunting heritage.
Working farms and ranches are good for our state’s agricultural economy, good for wildlife, good for hunters and ultimately good for Montana.
Keeping traditional farm and ranch families on their land benefits is a tough proposition. Market swings in commodity prices, weather, and development pressures – it all adds up to plenty of reasons why it’s a challenge today. But one tool that gives farmers and ranchers a boost and helps them pass their operations onto future generations is a conservation easement.
One such project just sailed through the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission in a unanimous vote to use Habitat Montana funding to purchase a conservation easement. The Horse Creek Complex conservation easement would protect more than 15,000 of ranch land in eastern Montana. And combined with public land that is inside the boundary and adjoins the ranch, nearly 20,000 acres of land would be opened up for public hunting access.
This property is a hunter’s dream. It’s a mix of rolling hardwood draws and native grasslands, badlands, and large-scale sagebrush grasslands. An easement on the property would protect these lands from development, and maintain the incredible habitat that supports an abundance of wildlife.
The ranch holds mule deer and white-tailed deer in the bottoms, antelope, and occasional has elk pass through. It’s excellent habitat for upland game birds, including sage grouse in several areas that includes leks. And it’s strong habitat for numerous non-game species of native wildlife, including songbirds.
That kind of intact, native habitat equals hunting opportunity. The landowners commit to providing 600 hunter days per year, which would open up land in an area that is largely private property and has limited hunting opportunity for the public.
The easement would cost $6.15 million and be funded through a combination of Habitat Montana hunter license fee dollars, as well as federal Natural Resources Conservation Service funds. These are the kind of public investments that support our agricultural economy, our wildlife, and our hunting heritage.
The project comes before the Montana State Land Board on Tuesday, Feb. 20 in Room 303 of the state Capital in Helena.
Read Montana Wildlife Federations comment letter to Gov. Bullock and the Montana State Land Board Members.
Nick Gevock is the conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation.
Jeff Lukas
Conservation Director
Jeff Lukas is a passionate conservationist who has been fishing and hunting his entire life. Whether it’s floating a small stream chasing trout, pursuing elk in the high country, or waiting in a blind for ducks to set their wings, Jeff is always trying to bring more people afield to show them what we are trying to protect. He loves being in the arena, and he will never shy away from conversations about the beautiful and unique corners of Big Sky country.
