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>

Take Action > Please Write a Letter to Help Conserve the Rocky Mountain Front

Your help is needed to urge the Montana Congressional delegation to fund a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) conservation easement initiative along the Rocky Mountain Front. The Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area involves purchasing perpetual conservation easements from private landowners to protect one of the most dramatic and biologically diverse landscapes in North America.

Conservation easements are a valuable tool for protecting wildlife habitat while leaving the land in private ownership. The FWS conservation easement program helps conserve these important resources and also maintains the rural character and agricultural lifestyle of the area.

Private lands along the Front provide a key buffer for core protected areas like the Scapegoat, Great Bear and Bob Marshall Wilderness Areas. The FWS recognizes that maintaining agricultural land use along the Front is essential to fish and wildlife conservation efforts within this magnificent landscape. There would be no fee title acquisition of land by the FWS under this project.

A major threat facing the Front is the increasing pressure to subdivide the area for residential development given the spectacular beauty of this area, which has recently been discovered. This type of development has already impacted wildlife habitat and agricultural lands in much of western Montana.

The Rocky Mountain Front begins, where the eastern flank of the Northern Rockies abruptly gives way to the Northern Great Plains. Virtually every wildlife species found in this area upon the arrival of Lewis and Clark remains today in full force and vigor. The Front is the last place in the world where grizzlies still roam the plains as they did nearly 200 years ago. In addition, gray wolf, wolverine, martin, swift fox, and lynx, all considered rare or endangered in the U.S., still occur in healthy populations on the Front.

Among biologists, the Rocky Mountain Front is ranked in the top one percent of wildlife habitat in the nation and is an important landscape within the Yukon to Yellowstone Region. The Front hosts over one-third of Montana’s plant species and the best remaining plains grizzly habitat in the world. The Front’s highest biological values are found in the wetlands and stream corridors that drain the Rocky Mountains, which coincide with areas of heaviest grizzly bear and other wildlife concentrations. The area also hosts one of the most intact native prairies in the Northern Great Plains dominated by rough fescue. Many of these attributes are located on private land.

Funding for the proposed project would come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). These dollars come from off-shore oil lease royalties that have been set aside for public land and easement acquisition. The LWCF is not a tax-generated fund and does not include taxpayer funding. The FWS received $1.0 million to kick off the program in Fiscal Year 2006 and another $1.9 million in Fiscal Year 2007 to continue the program. Currently there are numerous landowners interested in participating in the program but FWS needs funding for Fiscal Year 2008 to take advantage of opportunities to maintain these working ranch lands along the Front.

You can help by contacting the Montana Congressional delegation (contact information follows). Some key points to mention in your email, letter or phone call include:

  1. Ask Congressman Rehberg, Senator Baucus and Senator Tester to support an appropriation for the "U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area Project" in the Department of Interior’s Fiscal Year 2008 budget. The FWS needs $3 million this year and $5 million in Fiscal Year 2009 to take advantage of opportunities to work with landowners who have expressed an interest in protecting their lands under the easement program. Once again, ask them to support a $3 million appropriation for the Rocky Mountain Front.
  2. Give them your personal reasons for supporting this project - if you own a ranch or property along the Front and you'd like to protect it with an easement, tell them about the property (size, location, history, etc.) and why you're interested in participating in the program.
  3. Another point worth mentioning is that conservation easements can be a valuable tool for farmers and ranchers. For example, they can help address problems or issues with estate planning, provide funding to expand an individual's agricultural operation and/or insure that family farms and ranches will be maintained for future generations.
  4. An important thing to emphasize is that conservation easements can protect important wildlife habitat and maintain traditional rural lifestyles while leaving the land in private ownership on the County tax rolls. Landowners who are paid for easements recycle this money many times through the local economy.
  5. Other items of interest that you may want to include are that the program is strictly voluntary and works on a willing seller basis. (If the property is determined to be eligible, FWS pays fair market value for the easement to landowners interested in the program.)

Congress is currently working on the budget for the Fish and Wildlife Service and now is the time to write an email, fax a letter or call our Congressional representatives.

Honorable Max Baucus
511 Hart Senate Off. Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-2602
Phone: 1-800-332-6106 — Fax: 202-224-0515
Web Page with email: http://baucus.senate.gov/

Honorable Senator Jon Tester
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2604
Phone: 1-866-554-4403 — Fax: 202-224-8594
Web Page with email: http://tester.senate.gov/

Rep. Dennis Rehberg
516 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515.
Phone: 1-888-232-2626 — Fax: 202-225-5687
Web Page with email: http://rehberg.house.gov/