Help keep the Front the way it is now! Increasingly, important habitat along the Rocky Mountain Front is under pressure from the subdivision of private land for residential development. Conservation easements have proven to be a valuable tool for protecting wildlife and a traditional way of life by leaving land in private ownership. However, in order to capitalize on the gains already made, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in need of renewed funding to purchase additional conservation easements in the coming years. Learn how you can help this important program>>
Travel Plan for the Rocky Mountain Front Released!
The Coalition applauded the Forest Service for its plan that protects wildlife while emphasizing traditional uses on the Front. On October 1st, the Lewis and Clark released a final Travel Plan for the lower two-thirds of the Rocky Mountain Front covering roughly 390,000 acres, excluding the Badger-Two Medicine area. The Plan will guide all travel, recreation, and other uses on the Front for the next two decades, specifying routes for hikers and horseback riders, snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs) ...more>

A crown jewel of America’s natural heritage

Resources

• Frequently Asked Questions


• View a map of RMF oil and gas leases courtesy of CommEn Space (275KB in PDF)


• Agreement reached with major energy companies to retire Front leases


• Front leasing ban earns unanimous support from Montana press


• Factsheet: Montana energy production


• Factsheet: Front protection benefits the public


• Factsheet: Montanans’ Place for Hunting and Hiking


• Factsheet: Precedents for Retiring Energy Leases


• Factsheet: Officials’ statements on retiring leases


• Letter: Blackfeet endorse lease retirement

Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front has long been valued for its abundant wildlife, working ranches, vast open space and quiet vistas. The area’s beauty and natural values are essential to the enjoyment and economic security of local families, Front communities and all of Montana.

Proposed energy development could undo the conservation legacy that has left the Front little changed since Lewis and Clark first set eyes on it two centuries ago. Recent government actions, such as a Congressional ban on future leasing, have stymied proposed development and set the stage for retiring leases. But the Front remains at risk. You can make a difference by urging lawmakers to help retire oil and gas leases, and to set aside the Front for the enjoyment of future generations. In the summer of 2006, private groups of concerned Montanans reached agreements with energy companies to retire their oil and gas leases on the Front, including those held by Startech, which had been pushing the hardest to drill in the Blackleaf. But thousands of acres in the Badger-Two Medicine remain under lease.


A mosaic of land-use patterns interlock along Rocky Mountain Front, where working ranches and Native American activities have co-existed with wildlife and high-quality recreation for years.

Also pressing is the ongoing revision of the Lewis and Clark National Forest’s Travel Plan, the road map for guiding recreation on the Front for the next 15 years. The Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front urges you to contact the Forest Service in support of Alternative 3, which confines motor vehicles to roads.

Saving Our Heritage
A conservation legacy of collaboration continues to this day under the leadership of the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, a group that joins Montanans of varying points of view. The Coalition’s outfitters, anglers, hunters, ranchers, business people, conservationists and wilderness advocates are united in their belief that it is in Montanans best interests to keep the Front wild. The Coalition is also lobbying to keep the roadless parts of the Front’s public lands free of motorized use. This Web site is sponsored by three member groups of the Coalition: Montana Wilderness Association; Montana Wildlife Federation; and The Wilderness Society. For more information, contact us.