HELENA, Mont. – How can Montana improve funding to protect what many feel is its most important asset – the outdoors? That's what backers of the Montana Outdoor Heritage Project are asking.

The project kicked off Thursday, inviting Montanans to chime in with ideas on how to increase dedicated funding for conservation on private and public lands, wildlife management and access to outdoor recreation. The goal is to involve at least 10,000 Montanans this summer, either through community meetings or an online survey.

Christine Whitlatch, a Billings-based volunteer for the project, says this is an invitation for a diversity of folks to get involved.

"It's really exciting to have an opportunity to solicit voices from every experience,” says Whitlatch. “Every youth category, age, ability category across the state – to talk about what's important to us, what we're concerned about, what we hope we preserve and invest in, in the years to come."

Meetings are scheduled across the state this summer and the project is asking for input through September 23. The group behind the project will release survey results and public recommendations in October. The survey is at 'MontanaHeritageProject.com.'

Dave Chadwick, executive director with the Montana Wildlife Federation, says now is the time to talk about outdoor recreation. It's a huge economic driver for the state, but the Montana Legislature dedicated less than 5% of the state budget to safeguarding it this year.

Chadwick cites a few issues driving the need to protect the Montana way of life, starting with access to public land.

"Montana has more so-called landlocked public land than any other western state – public land that isn't accessible to the public. A million and a half acres, at least,” says Chadwick. “A lot of Montanans are concerned that our state parks aren't adequately funded. We have a $22 million backlog."

Visits to Montana State Parks have increased 34% in the past decade.

Bob Walker, executive director of the Montana Trails Coalition, says there were two bipartisan successes in the Legislature this year. One increases funding for state parks and fishing access sites; the other aims to secure access to public land.

But Walker says more needs to be done.

"The two bills I just mentioned are good starts toward addressing the rising demand for parks and trails and access, but it's just not enough,” says Walker. “Montanans need to keep working together to find more solutions, and I think the Montana Outdoor Heritage Project is the right way to do it."


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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.

Arizona conservation groups and sportsmen alike say they're pleased the Bureau of Land Management will now recognize conservation as an integral part of public lands management.

The agency's new rule puts protecting the environment on par with other land-use priorities.

Scott Garlid, executive director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, said historically the BLM has done what he termed a "pretty good job," not only managing about 12 million acres of public lands in Arizona, but also protecting natural resources.

"They've got a tough job," Garlid acknowledged. "I think this rule helps make their job a little bit easier because it gives them some tools to balance those different demands on the 12 million acres that they manage."

Garlid predicted the rule will raise what he terms "harder-to-quantify conservation values" to the same level of importance as more extractive land uses like oil and gas exploration and mining. He thinks most Arizonans will recognize the new rule as a positive. A solid majority of Arizona voters across party lines say they are conservationists and use public lands for recreation.

To Garlid, the rule makes it clear the BLM is recognizing certain parts of federal lands, in Arizona and around the West, have been degraded. He contended restoration leases will be a good tool, allowing the BLM to lease acres to groups specifically to improve the conditions on a given landscape. He noted opponents of the new rule might see the leases as a way to "lock up" land but he argued it is not true.

"One example could be a nonprofit, like the Arizona Wildlife Federation," Garlid pointed out. "We could get a conservation lease from the Bureau of Land Management to do riparian restoration work, or work to remove invasive species along a creek bank."

According to the BLM, while a restoration or mitigation lease is in place, casual uses of the leased lands like recreation, hunting, fishing and research activities would generally continue.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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