Non-profits of the Gallatin Valley
Greater Yellowstone Coalition: Striving to Keep an Ecosystem Whole
By Alison Grey, 9-28-07
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The Gallatin Valley is home to over 200 non-profits. These organizations do not hinge on metropolitan amenities, and are often created to preserve the intact rural and wild places of the West. As part of our New West economy, NewWest/Bozeman is highlighting an organization as a weekly series.
Encompassing two national parks and six national forests, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the largest, relatively intact temperate zone ecosystems in North America. This unique patchwork of public and private lands spans three states and continues to house nearly all of its original native species.
Created under the notion that an ecosystem will only remain healthy and wild if it is kept whole, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has been a leading voice in ecosystem management and strives to fulfill their mission statement: “People protecting the lands, waters and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem now and for future generations”
Today, this non-profit has 20 board members, 25 staff members and more than 10,000 members from all 50 states, with approximately one-third of those members residing in the three states that comprise the ecosystem, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Rivers Conservation Coordinator, Scott Bosse, expands on GYC and their efforts.
NewWest.Net: Why and how did your organization come into being?
GYC: GYC was formed in 1983 by a group of scientists and other concerned citizens who understood that in order to conserve grizzly bears and other wildlife within Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, it is also necessary to protect their habitat on surrounding public and private lands which are more vulnerable to various forms of development.
NewWest.Net: Why is this organization in Bozeman? What are the advantages and challenges of operating in this area? Are there other non-profits in this area that you partner with or would like to?
GYC: We are based in Bozeman because it is within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, it is home to a major research university, it is easily accessible by car and plane and it has a fantastic quality of life. All of these factors allow us to attract top caliber employees who want to live here for the long term. We team up with lots of other non-profits in town, including Trout Unlimited, the Wilderness Society, the Sonoran Institute and American Wildlands.
NewWest.Net: Where are you directing your resources?
GYC: Over the past five years, we have made a major commitment to opening more field offices and hiring more staff in places where our conservation work is focused. We now have field offices in Jackson and Cody, Wyo. and Idaho Falls, Idaho.
NewWest.Net: What is your annual operating budget, and can you please break that down between administrative and fund-raising versus program expenses?
GYC: Our budget for the 2008 fiscal year is just over $3 million. Approximately 75 percent of that money goes to program, with 25 percent going to administration and fundraising.
NewWest.Net: How are you fulfilling your mission statement?
GYC: We’re continually teaming up with diverse allies – citizens, ranchers, realtors, business owners, sportsmen, agency staff and elected leaders – to build the type of strong coalitions that are needed to move major conservation initiatives forward throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
NewWest.Net: What is your most recent success story?
GYC: Earlier this month, we were successful in getting newly appointed U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to agree to sponsor legislation to protect nearly 400 miles of the Snake River and its tributaries under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and to withdraw the Wyoming Range (south of Jackson Hole) from future oil and gas drilling. At a more local level, we worked closely with the Gallatin County Commissioners to expand development setbacks for all new subdivisions along the Gallatin, East Gallatin, Madison, Jefferson and Missouri Rivers.
NewWest.Net: Thank you.
For more information, visit Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
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Comments
When the GYC has a perceived evil in their cross hairs “facts” are not as important as fabrication in their arguments.
Environmentalism is a good thing, but I have come to believe that environmentalists are not.
Daryl L. Hunter
It is a fully operating ranch with pivot lines, black cows and Long Horns. There are large fenced set-aside areas as cover for Huns, Chuckers, White tail, skunks, coyote, fox and other small critters. Brush Piles as Habitat. The Elk winter and summer range is grazed by cattle to keep the cows healthy and grass vibrant. Water is supplied year round by tanks and lakes. Logging left cover areas for game to travel safely thru and hunting is limited to a few Elk each year. Huge fire losses were replanted immediatly by helocopter spread seed on the first snow. New grass abounds and the Elk love it. There are even apples as a treat for the Bears. The Ducks, Geese and other water creatures are not harrassed on the lakes. Goose and Sandhill goslings abound. Fish are catch and release. Gophers are shot and the raptors and ravens love the feed. Blue bird boxes are full. The ranch management is different from the current Park management in that it recognizes that man is also an evolved and changing animal on this earth and must also be accomodated as the dominant species. The Ranch is run to benefit the human race but the critters are well provided for and allowed to be wild. They aren't followed, tranquilized, collared or analyzed and managed for their own good.
Public lands are supposed to be accessible to all people. But that very presence of many people is not wildlife friendly. That is why the large ranches, off limits to the public, should be preserved as such by any means. They should not be taxed to subdivision at the death of principals, nor should they be taxed to subdivision by comparable valuations. They are a resource that actually supports themselves and act as a refuge within the vast public land holdings. I cannot see how they are able to actually be profit centers in our capitalist way of life, but that does not preclude their existence from being non-sustainable. Let the wealthy provide us with the fruits of their conservation.
I, too, know of a large ranch that goes from the valley floor to the top of the mountains. It provides for the full range of wildlife, especially the great bears. Because of the size of the place and the lack of human interaction, the bears are not in conflict with people and stay in the neighborhood acting as good citizens. They are just a part of the local landscape, just as the wolves are. The wolves only get into trouble when they go to town. Sort of like loggers and cowboys of a different time.
It would be wonderful if GYC could recognize that private lands, as they exist today, are a contributing resource of the area, and should be a valued piece of the conservation puzzle. If left intact, as they should be, those lands will continue to add diversity to the landscape now firmly in the hands of Federal land managers who are following a policy of incineration of the forests for their "own good." "Natural fire regimes." All in denial of human driven landscapes by set fire for 10,000 years or more.
It has been human landscape manipulation that has determined the animals we have today. Under the GYC and Federal plans, humans are removed, and the known result is that of total incineration of the very lands under "protection." The only diversity is provided by private lands, since the Federal estate is under one management regime. One size does not fit all. That is their mantra, but the real result is blackened rocks, no organics left in the soil, dead trees, and no thermal or security cover. Not a way to provide interim habitat for anything other than a woodpecker or a nuthatch here and there. Somehow, the people have to stop this nut case Federal management regime, unless the intended result is to stop the Nazis before they get to Moscow by depriving them of food and supplies.
I have to wonder if WFU, "Let 'er burn", and the backfires from two drainages away, and then when the fire perimeter is fire trailed, sending in the Hot Shot Storm Troopers to burn out the "islands of fuel" (the unburned timber in this so-called mosaic of diversity), is all about Wolverine Forestry. That is where you kill it and then pee on it so nobody else will want it. Wolverine Forestry keeps those trees from ever seeing a sawmill and making a greedy person rich.
As long as GYC is about making more and more land public and then managing it to a sure end by fire, they are not working on behalf of critters. They are working to salve their own conscience, their own idea of Edenic Paradise. They become environmental Taliban of eco-Puritanism. It is self defeating if only because it is too exclusive, and hardly inclusive to private property which is a bedrock right in this country at this time.
Although they are off limits to the likes of me, I still want the large property ownerships managed by the owner or owners for their vision of what it should be. That is the diversity the land needs to provide a full range of habitats and critters.
quote:"with approximately one-third of those members residing in the three states that comprise the ecosystem end quote
Probably at least half of that paltry 1/3 of those who know the state are enviros. Talk to the ranchers, farmers, hunters, folks who have spent a lifetime working and improving the area. Forget the computer models.