Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front is one of the best remaining American wildlands. It is a window into the wild heritage that makes the United States unique.
Some people are simply born in the wrong place. Gloria was 16 years old when realized she was one of those people — after seeing the Rocky Mountains for the first time.
Weeds cost Montana economically by reducing farm and ranch productivity, degrading water quality, depressing wildlife numbers, and threatening outdoor recreation.
During the past several months, while Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act has been grabbing most of the headlines and capturing a great deal of attention in Montana, another collaborative effort to preserve one of the state’s last best places, long in the making, was finally unveiled.
Five exploration companies have agreed to relinquish eight federal oil and natural gas leases on 29,000 acres along the Rocky Mountain Front, the largest withdrawal since federal legislation was passed in 2006 to protect the area from mineral development.
…Most of the 29,000 acres, which are located in the Lewis and Clark and Flathead national forests, fall within the 130,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine, an area considered sacred by the tribe, Tatsey said.
A new survey by a Colorado-based pollster, commissioned by the Wilderness Society, found that Montanans favor, by a 3 to 1 margin, a Rocky Mountain Front conservation plan that includes more wilderness.
The Rocky Mountain Heritage Act, unveiled in September by the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, proposes to add protection to 393,000 acres.
A plan that proposes to add a new layer of protection to 307,000 acres along the Rocky Mountain Front, while adding 86,000 acres in six chunks to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, was unveiled Wednesday.
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act is an agreement hammered out during the past three years mainly by people who live along the Front, according to members of the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front.
