Missoula News

community conservation

Blackfoot Stewardship Project: A View from Above

By Yogesh Simpson, 5-10-07

The Blackfoot river watershed is a piece of rugged and pristine country in which many parties have a vested interest. That was the message Jack Rich wanted to convey as he narrated an aerial tour Wednesday morning for members of the press and a member of Max Baucus’ staff.

Rich is a member of the work group for the Blackfoot Cooperative Landscape Stewardship Pilot Project, which unveiled a proposal in January of this year to gather many seemingly disparate land management goals under one comprehensive plan.

“One word: stewardship,” says Rich of the group’s motivation to tackle such an ambitious project. “We wanted to be good stewards. There’s still a lot of opportunity to keep intact ecosystems.”

There was no room in the six-seater plane for Rich’s broad black cowboy hat but he still looked the part of rancher and outfitter as he pointed down at the features boundaries of the land stewardship project he has spent the last two years working on. Rich owns and operates Rich Ranch Outfitting and Guest Ranch outside Ovando, which is about to celebrate its fiftieth year in business.

The pilot on Wednesday’s flight was Bruce Gordon, president of EcoFlight, a nonprofit organization that provides scenic flights in support of other groups working to preserve public lands.

The Blackfoot project’s work group includes other landowners in the watershed and an unlikely consortium of snowmobile, environmental and forest industry groups.

	Looking north from the Clearwater Junction toward the Swan Range.

The plan covers a total of 430,000 acres and prescribes an 87,000-acre addition to the Bob Marshall/Scapegoat and Mission Mountain Wildernesses, as well as designated roadless, motorized-use areas.

Funding for the plan is being requested in the form of a congressional earmark totaling $7.9 million over ten years. The money would go to the Forest Service for restoration, management and monitoring of the 400,000 acres in the Lolo National Forest, and toward a boiler for a biomass energy plant in the town of Seeley Lake.

The co-generation plant would use woody debris generated by restoration work, that would otherwise be unusable, to power the Pyramid Mountain Lumber Mill.

The project’s work group is currently collecting public comment on the proposal and meeting with a broad spectrum of governmental agencies and interest groups. So far Rich has been encouraged by the response from Montana’s congressional delegation. Baucus’ representative on the flight, David Cobb, declined to comment on the project.

From the air the unique and stunning character of the Blackfoot watershed is undeniable. Snow still blankets the peaks of the Mission and Swan Mountains, and in between is a verdant string of lakes and wetlands. Rich pointed out important habitat for grizzly bears and mountain goats, and areas prized for snowmobiling and timber harvest.

Whether the project will receive funding is still unclear, but as a demonstration of cooperation between politically adverse groups and public agencies it has already succeeded.

“The concept of it is simple,” says Rich. “It’s people working together to manage the resource.”

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