Montana is consistently rated one of the best places to live in the country, and it’s no secret that easy access to the outdoors is one of the main reasons why. Nowhere else in the world can match the opportunities we have here to hunt, fish, camp and enjoy the great outdoors. Polls consistently show that the ability to get outside and enjoy fresh air, wild country, and clean water is the number one reason people choose to live here.
Montana’s rich outdoor opportunities depend on our national forests, national parks and other public lands. These lands – totaling more than 28 million acres, or about a third of the state – provide ample opportunity for hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, and other recreational activities. It’s no surprise that Montanans visit public lands at a higher rate than almost anybody else in the nation. One poll from 2015 found that 96 percent of Montanans reported visiting public lands in the last year—with more than 43 percent visiting more than twenty times.
Public lands are particularly important for Montana hunters…
Our public lands are crucial to Montana’s heritage and our economy. Montanans hunt, fish, camp, and hike on public lands more than anybody else in the nation. Our access to the outdoors is why we live here, and it’s why tourists from all over the world visit Montana. Just last week, a poll found that 83 percent of Montanans believe that public lands are important for “protecting our culture and heritage.”
Over the last few years, Montanans from across the political spectrum have been working together to fight against proposals to transfer and sell off our public lands. These proposals are being advanced by special interests who believe that our public lands should be developed and sold off instead of protected for future generations. Thanks to the hard work of thousands of Montanans, we have stopped the public land grab dead in its tracks. Not a single bill has made it through the Montana Legislature, and our Congressional delegation is united in opposition to this idea at the federal level.
But fighting bad ideas isn’t enough. We also need to push forward to expand public access the outdoors and protect more lands for future generations. Our heritage, our economy, and our Montana way of life depend on it.
Today, Governor Steve Bullock announced a plan to defend and improve public access to public land in Montana. The Governor has called for:
• Continued vigilance against the transfer and sale of our public lands
• Full funding of Habitat Montana, which uses hunting license fees to open up access and protect habitat
• Creating a new Office of Outdoor Recreation to support outdoor economic development
• Creating a Public Access Specialist who will work to address specific problems with land and water access
These proposals will help Montana’s hunting, fishing, and outdoor heritage and support our economy. Now we need to work to get our Legislature and other Montana leaders on board. You can send a message to the Governor about his plan by visiting mtgreatoutdoors.org.
Montana’s incredibly popular Habitat Montana program is a favorite target of state lawmakers because it allows the state to purchase land for wildlife through a fund that hunters pay into.
What’s often left out of the conversation is the contribution that Habitat Montana makes to traditional farm and ranch operations. That’s because Habitat Montana primarily funds conservation easements that protect working agricultural lands – which tremendously benefit wildlife – and can help farmers and ranchers add to their operations and stay on the land.
This month that was well illustrated through four major conservation easements that came before the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission. The proposals total 33,800 acres on four ranches located in central and eastern Montana. These stunning landscapes include key habitat for mule deer, antelope, elk and numerous other game and non-game species.
Among those are sage grouse, a native prairie grouse that was nearly listed as endangered last year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opted not to list the bird, thanks to extensive state and federal conservation plans aimed at protecting and restoring crucial sage grouse habitat in sagebrush-steppe environments. One of the projects proposed this month – the Machler Property in Fergus County north of Roy – includes nine sage grouse leks. The easement would protect 2,700 acres of the ranch that is located in core sage grouse habitat.
There’s another key element to these easements. They include a public access component to the properties that allows public hunting. And they also have the potential to improve public access to adjoining public lands, which would create more public hunting opportunity.
Another easement, the Rumney Foothills located near Cascade, would allow the rancher to expand the operation by purchasing more property. The area is comprised of foothill grasslands that provide important winter range for elk and mule deer, as well as riparian and shrub habitats where white-tailed deer thrive. In total the easement would protect 7,512 acres in two areas.
Montana lawmakers who don’t like Habitat Montana sometimes use language that FWP is trying to buy up the whole state. They state that FWP owns too much land, referring to our system of state Wildlife Management Areas that are strategically located in key wildlife corridors or on winter range. And last session, the Legislature through the budget process limited the ability of Habitat Montana to be used for new purchases, with the exception of those that were already in negotiations. Several lawmakers have called on the program to be ended entirely.
That would be bad for Montana’s hunters, anglers and wildlife watchers. It would be bad for the numerous businesses that thrive because of our abundant wildlife and the public lands that support it.
And as these projects demonstrate, it would be bad for our agriculture industry as well.
Nick Gevock is the conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation.
Last week, while a bunch of all-hat, no-cow rebels were vandalizing public property and hogging national media attention in Burns, Oregon, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission quietly approved a few projects that show just how popular public land really is.
Montanans bought more public land for public access and wildlife habitat.
That’s right – Montanans purchased land from willing sellers to add to our state Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). The purchases included key winter range for elk west of Missoula, wetlands along the north shore of Flathead Lake and a key wildlife link between Nevada Mountain and the Garnett Range near Helmville. The projects were funded by the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Habitat Montana program.
In total, 1,156 acres were added to the public estate. These are places where all Montanans – and all Americans – can go to hunt, fish, hike, birdwatch, etc. All three were additions to existing WMAs, places that were already protected by hunters and anglers who had the foresight to set land aside for wildlife.
The projects were partially paid for through Habitat Montana, which uses a small fee on hunting licenses to purchase conservation easements, fishing access sites, lands for wildlife, access and sporting opportunity. Habitat Montana is essential because it is often matched with federal and private foundation dollars to complete projects. These projects also included funds from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is funded by a portion of offshore oil drilling revenue.
The Oregon occupiers – and the extremist politicians who support them – vilify national forests, wildlife refuges and other federal lands, and hold up state management as a panacea. But then they turn around and oppose funding for state public land programs like Habitat Montana.
Instead of the political rhetoric, we should be working together to support more public land and more public access at every level. Instead of pitting federal government versus state government, we should support programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund and Habitat Montana that protect land for people and wildlife.
The truth is that public lands – state and federal – contribute to local economies. The habitat and access that public lands provide are essential to sustain Montana’s $6 billion outdoor recreation economy. State and federal agencies also make payments to counties to offset the lost property tax revenue.
Montanans know these places are even more important than dollars and cents. They’re essential to our very way of life – a big if not the biggest reason people choose to live here.
So let the blowhards in Oregon who think they’re entitled to our national birthright continue to spew their nonsense while they tear down fences and destroy public property. The vast majority of Americans know the real value of our public lands and will fight fiercely to protect them.
Nick Gevock is the conservation director for Montana Wildlife Federation.
Jeff Lukas
Elk Campaign Manager
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.
