Library
Browse our resource library for studies, reports, letters, and other documents concerning the Rocky Mountain Front. All documents are in PDF format and require free Adobe Reader for viewing. Click the Adobe icon for the latest free downloadable version.
Factsheets
Lease withdrawal leglislation: Frequently asked questions
This factsheet answers questions regarding a energy-lease ban on the Front. Federal legislation, passed in late 2006, withdraws the Front's federal lands from future oil and gas leasing and has no effect on private or state-owned mineral estate. (40K)
Wilderness Walks on the Rocky Mountain Front
The Montana Wilderness Association hosts dozens of hikes along the Rocky Mountain Front every summer. Here is a list of the 2007 Wilderness Walks. (90K)
Front leasing ban earns unanimous support from Montana press
Here are excerpts from editorials hailing Congress’ approval of a ban on new oil and gas leasing on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. This measure is crucial to the success of ongoing efforts to retire the Front’s old leases, which cover some 80,000 acres of the Badger-Two Medicine. (16K)
Strong support for protecting Montana's Rocky Mountain Front
Montanans, local officials, the Blackfeet Tribe, federal agency staff, and Montana’s major newspapers are applauding legislation introduced by Sen. Conrad Burns that would prevent new oil and gas leasing on the Front. This factsheet excerpts various editorials and comments published in the press since Burns' announcement. (50K)
Officials' Past Statements on Retiring Front Leases
In recent years, Montana’s elected leaders and Bush administration officials have indicated support for retiring oil and gas leases on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. Here are excerpts of news articles and press releases in which officials staked out positions. (20K)
Bedtime for the Front's Energy Leases:
Lease agreement follows a tradition of common-sense solutions that bridge industry and conservation (20K)
Is There Energy on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front?
Federal inventories and past experience show the Front holds little energy potential, while eastern Montana continues to pump up production. (35K)
Montana's Rocky Mountain Front: A Conservation History
Montanans' long-term conservation investments in the Front have returned huge dividends to the state and reflect broad support for protecting this landscape. (20K)
Montanans' Place for Hunting and Hiking
The stunning landscape where the Great Plains fold into the Rocky Mountains ranks among the “top one percent” of wildlife habitat left in the lower 48 states. It is a place accessible to all Montanans to enjoy wild animals in a wild setting (20K)
A letter from the Blackfeet Nation
The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council urges Montana's Congressional delegation to take the steps necessary to secure agreements to retire leases on the Rocky Mountain Front. "The Front is a vital part of our Blackfeet history, culture and continues to give us an opportunity to experience the life of our ancestors, understood to provide strength, subsistence, cultural identity and to connect us with our creator," writes council chair Pat Thomas. (250K)
Montana's Newspapers Agree: Protect the Rocky Mountain Front. Now.
The Rocky Mountain Front’s jaw-dropping beauty unifies Montanans with its natural qualities that help define Montana as the “last best place.” A consensus for conservation is reflected in the many eloquent editorials published in Montana’s major newspapers, celebrating the Front’s scenic and wildlife values and denouncing proposals to compromise those values. (25 K)
Not Just Another Pretty Face: Montana's home of diverse wildlife and plant communities
Biologists agree the Front is a natural jewel, crucial to the future of Montana’s wildlife legacy. Large carnivores and big game species thrive here thanks to a century-old Montana-born tradition of stewardship that brought together ranchers, conservationists and sportsmen in a show of the unifying power wildlife holds in American society.
Montanans Speak Out For Quiet Use
Excerpts from comments submitted on the Rocky Mountain Front Travel Plan in the summer of 2005. (51K)
A Quantitative Analysis of Public Comments Concerning The Rocky Mountain Front Travel Plan
Analysis shows an overwhelming majority of Montanans favor quiet use on the Front. (35k)
Travel Plan Revision Must Put Wildlife Ahead of Motorized Use on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front
Continued motorized use on the Front risks undermining the effectiveness of its critical wildlife habitat, according to spatial analyses the Wilderness Society performed on various alternatives for the Front's Travel Plan. This factsheet summarizes the group's Travel Plan comments, which are also available in PDF below. (51K)
Are We Losing Groung? The case against motorizing Montana's Rocky Mountain Front
The Front's natural values far outweigh its potential as a motorized playground. This fact sheet summarizes an August 2004 analysis of a transportation network proposed by the Lewis and Clark National Forest. (48K)
Montana’s Front at a Crucial Turning Point
This primer details proposals for gas drilling and motorized use in one of Montana’s most revered natural landscapes. (49KB)
Montana’s Place for Big Game and Quiet Recreation
Motorized recreation threatens wildlife on the Rocky Mountain Front, according to a report by biologist Barrie Gilbert. (32KB)
A Conservation History of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front
A linear look at efforts to spare the Front, starting with the 1913 establishment of the Sun River Game Preserve to more recent decisions to withdraw national forest lands from mineral leasing. (14 KB)
Montana's Badger-Two Medicine: Too Special to Drill
This 130,000-acre portion of the Rocky Mountain Front is sacred to the Blackfeet, but much of it was leased for oil and gas development without a proper environmental review. (18 KB)
Elected leaders and agencies say Montana's premier natural area is too precious to drill
Officials' "scoping" comments on the Blackleaf EIS show broad opposition to energy exploration on the Rocky Mountain Front. (32 KB)
Analysis of Economically Recoverable Gas in the Rocky Mountain Front
This study by The Wilderness Society, citing government data, found that the Front’s reserve of natural gas wouldn’t fuel the nation’s need for more than week. (60 KB)
A Century of Wildlife Protection
The Rocky Mountain Front has served as a proving ground for Montana conservation initiatives. (22 KB)
History of Leasing and Natural Gas Exploration Activity in the Blackleaf Area
This timeline prepared by the BLM outlines the 70-year history of energy exploration in the Rocky Mountain Front’s Blackleaf area. (32 KB)
Letters
Mark Sexton: Seek common ground for future of the Front
The withdrawal of the Rocky Mountain Front from oil and gas leasing on federal lands represnts a sturdy new wind blowing not only along the Front but throughout the West. Communities, individauls and organizations are coming together to sustain our landscapes and ways of life, writes Mary Sexton, a former Teton County commissioner who now heads the Montana Department of Natural Resources in the Choteau Acantha.
Hunters and anglers back legislation to withdraw the Front from future leasing
This letter, signed by more than 30 hunting and fishing groups, from Libby to Billings, asks Montana's Congressional delegation to support legislation that would protect federal lands along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. The language would withdraw federal lands along the Front from future natural gas and oil leasing. (25K)
Burns takes right stance on Rocky Mountain Front
Opinion piece by Stoney Burk: Legislation to ban future leasing on the Rocky Mountain Front will help ensure retirement of existing oil and gas leases through voluntary, privately funded agreements with the leaseholders.(150K)
FWP Travel Plan comments endorses Alternative 3
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks urges the Forest Service to restrict motorized vehicles to established roads on the Rocky Mountain Front. This nine-page letter, submitted by FWP regional chief Mike Aderhold, endorses Alternative 3 for the Lewis and Clark National Forest Travel Plan revision, citing the Front's supreme wildlife values, public opinion and Native American cultural values. (76K)
Thunder can help protect fragile area, by Gloria Flora
A Canadian energy firm will find that it makes good business sense to relinquish its energy leases on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, revered for its scenery and wildlife. Writing in the Calgary Herald, Gloria Flora, the former National Forest supervisor who withdrew public land along the Front from new energy leasing, urges Thunder Energy to come to the bargaining table.
Blackleaf Project EIS
After indefinitely halting a proposal to drill the Front's Blackleaf, the BLM suggested negotiated lease retirement could be the best way to resolve land-use controversies on the Front. "Stopping work on the EIS will give all parties a chance to step back and look at other alternatives to resolve the issues of energy development in the Blackleaf area. Some of the altenatives could include providing the lessee with credits toward other BLM leases; buying out the lease; exchanging the lease for other public land leases; or completing the EIS in the future," the agency wrote in this 2005 position paper.
Reports
Too Wild to Drill
The Rocky Mountain Front is among 17 special landscapes under threat of oil and gas development highlighted in a report by The Wilderness Society. According to a TWS analysis, Bush-era drlling plans call for 118,000 new wells on western public lands in the coming decade, which could result in a tripling in the number of wells. (185K)
The Wilderness Society's comments on the Rocky Mountain Front Travel Plan back Alternative 3.
The Wilderness Society applied spatial analysis to some of the Travel Plan alternatives to compare the degree to which they would fragment the Front's habitat. This 24-page document details how Alternative 3 helps ensure habitat effectiveness on the Front while still providing for reasonable motorized access. Maps available upon request. (259K)
Environmental Assessment and Land Protection Plan: Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area
In April 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released this 39-page Environmental Assessment of its proposal to purchase conservation easements on 170,000 acres of private land along the Front. The program would help maintain a large unfragmented block of habitat between existing protected areas, such as the Pine Butte Swamp Preserve and state wildlife management areas. (1.3MB)
Motorized Access on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front: a synthesis of scientific literature and recommendations for use in revision of the travel plan for the Rocky Mountain Division
The forested lands of the Rocky Mountain Front and adjoining ranches of northwestern
Montana harbor the richest diversity of large mammals including carnivores remaining in
the United States. This land has extraordinary value for recreation and appreciation of its
exceptional cast of wildlife species. (174KB)
Roadless Area Conservation Along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front: Are we losing ground?
In August 2004, The Wilderness Society released this 30-page analysis of a 480-mile transportation network envisioned for the Front under a prposed Travel Plan revision. The report concludes the resulting motorized use could have dire consequences for the Front's low-elevation habitat areas and the wildlife that depend on them. Unprotected land along the Front features a range of elevation zones and land-cover types that are not well represented in Montana's inventory of protected lands. (790K)
Resources Outside Our Website
Oil and Gas Accountability Project
OGAP works with communities throughout the Rocky Mountain West and across the country to reduce the social, economic and environmental problems caused by oil and gas development.
Western Energy Clearinghouse
A clearinghouse for news, information, and interview sources about energy development in the West. WEC's research library contains a wealth of reports, expert testimony, press releases, and images that document the impact of energy development on western lands and communities.
The Lewis and Clark National Forest
The Forest Service is revising its Travel Plan for the Rocky Mountain Front portion of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Check the Forest’s website to learn what options are being considered and how you can participate in the travel planning process.
Rocky Mountain Front
Montana State University instructor John Vollertsen launched this site celebrating the Front.