Over eighty percent of the glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park have been lost since 1850, and the few remaining are expected to disappear within 15 years.
The northwestern section of Montana's Crown of the Continent sustains a vital tourism industry and the highest density of grizzly bears in the continental United States.
I came to Montana as a working tourist in 1972 — drawn by a summer job in Yellowstone. It took a while, but I found a way to make a life here. In Montana we've got big mountains, big rivers, big wildlife and that big sky. Thousands of businesses, like mine, depend on these spectacular natural assets. The recently released America's Great Outdoors (AGO) Report lays out a practical plan for protecting these things; it's nice to see Interior Secretary Salazar and other leaders in Washington investing in our natural capital.
As momentous as Campbell's announcement was, it's also part of a conservation trend sweeping across the Rocky Mountains on both sides of the border.
Canadian conservationists have been pushing the Castles Special Place initiative to protect the mountains north of Waterton Lakes National Park. They've also been trying to extend Waterton's boundary west to the Flathead River. And then there's the big-umbrella project known as the "Yellowstone to the Yukon Initiative" which seeks to protect wild areas along a 2,000-mile swath of the Rocky Mountains.
Two days after British Columbia placed the area north of Glacier National Park off limits to mining, Montana's leadership announced it would do the same on federal lands here.
"We need to show the Canadians we're working in good faith on our side of the border, as well," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
A team of U.N. scientists is meeting with Glacier National Park leaders to discuss the potential impact of coal mining and natural gas development near the World Heritage Site.
The U.N. delegates met all day Monday with Glacier Park leadership, scientists, researchers and local stakeholders. They are expected to spend a couple more days touring the park and meeting with officials on the U.S. side of the border before heading to the Canadian side of the Flathead Valley in British Columbia to meet with officials there.
For decades Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine area just south of Glacier National Park was the home of rampant off-roading that gradually carved up the forest’s phenomenal wild lands. Now with the help of local citizens who live along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front and our partners at Earthjustice, we’ve defeated an attempt to overturn a Forest Service plan to protect the Badger-Two Medicine from such damage.
