| Blackfoot Challenge |
|
|
|
Too worn from years of clear- cutting to bank's edge, of mining run-off pollutants to be in the blue-ribbon trout class, the Big Blackfoot flowed past Lincoln, Montana, once a placer mining town, now a town given over to recreation and mining exploration, but more essential to the Blackfoot Challenge story, the home of a goodly number of hard-working, community- driven citizens troubled enough to propose a new Trout Unlimited Chapter. The September issue of Field and Stream Magazine gives us an inspiring description of the start-up, the day that "Daryl Parker walked into Becky Garland's store in 1987" and events that followed. The magazine calls this start-up group, "Heroes of Conservation" and pictures nine important players who helped to make it happen, standing, some a bit uneasily, in the famous river. There were issues that overrode personal interests, issues such as water rights, an ongoing Montana issue, particularly in times of drought. And of course, the fish that weren't there, quite possibly the cause of the look on Norman Maclean's face, the droop of his shoulders, the sense of valuable things lost. There was also everybody's issue, noxious weeds and their strangling effect on the health of the entire watershed. The early group set the style that, with the inevitable disciplines that scale imposes, was to become the enduring style of The Blackfoot Challenge. The name, "The Blackfoot Challenge" was Becky's idea. Land Lindbergh, Greenough landowner and another of the founding group, described the Challenge as a "loosey-goosey, non-membership, non-dues paying, informal let's-do-it group." An issue was identified, such as water right claims, particularly in times of drought. An informal committee was formed to find a pragmatic resolution. The driving idea was to serve as a clearinghouse for the efficient exchange of information. It was a simple thing to measure effectiveness. Or at least that's the way it seemed at the beginning. Things changed, and changed dramatically according to Becky Garland. In 1994 the Weed Committee was formed. Two years later the Blackfoot Challenge reached out to private landowners and with the critical help of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) a partnership was formed that was to propel the founders into new territory and establish the Blackfoot Challenge as a valid, effective watershed restoration entity. The work of the Weeds Committee, its holistic, inclusive approach, the needs to monitor and evaluate and react to ongoing conditions on-the-ground, mandated changes in structure, record-keeping, data-sharing, formally scheduled meetings, more committees, more of everything.
Darrell Sall, BLM manager of the Garnet Resource Area Office at Missoula, who in 1996 was the winner of the Managerial/Administrative Award for his leadership in establishing the Blackfoot Challenge forum, was one of those "influential" friends. Another was and still is Hank Goetz, Land Director of the Challenge who recently retired as Director of the Lubrecht Experimental Forest, a 26,000-acre swath of forest donated to the University of Montana. Considering all the awards over time—including extraordinary recognition at the President's Conference on Cooperative Conservation held in St. Louis at the end of August—it might appear that the Challenge has become over-exposed. But that feeling diminishes as the story, in all its dimensions, unfolds. It becomes evident that the Blackfoot Challenge story resembles a huge multi-skinned onion: layer upon layer, story within story within story. Perhaps it truly began back in 1972 when Ken Margolis, then Northwest Regional Director of The Nature Conservancy initiated a series of meetings at Lubrecht Experimental Forest. In attendance were Arnie Bolle, head of the University of Montana School of Forestry and a nationally respected forest-use expert, Hank Goetz, agency representatives, conservation organization representatives, industry representatives, natural resource trained lawyers were meeting to formulate a plan to bring to the Montana state legislature, a Conservation Easement Program. The first year the enabling legislation went before the state senate it met a quick death. The group went back to work and patiently "educated" the legislators. The legislation was passed in the 1974 session. The Montana legislature had become convinced that the most demanding of criteria would be met so that conservation easements would be tough and legitimate. The Nature Conservancy granted its first easement almost immediately. As would be the continuing style in the Blackfoot watershed, unlikely partners found common ground. New partners (Tina Bernd-Cohen, current Executive Director of the Challenge says "We're all about partners") had taken center stage, and had established a model of "cooperation" in the valley that sustains the group to this day. She also points out that from that early beginning, there are now 90,000 acres in the Blackfoot held in perpetual easement. Mechanisms, standards, constraints, oversights—all the criteria necessary to implement the granting of land easements while protecting public interests—were put into place. So that when the 2,000 pound gorilla, the Plum Creek divestiture program announced itself in 2003, the Blackfoot Challenge was ready. Plum Creek and The Nature Conservancy continue to work out the details of an 88,000-acre transfer of private lands. The earlier ad hoc committees have given way to monthly committee meetings, Bee Hall is a committee member representing The Nature Conservancy, Denny Sigars represents Plum Creek, and a cast of diverse players sits on other committees. Trout Unlimited continues as another vital partner, in at the beginning, pledged for the run. Hank Goetz, because of his life's immersion in the Blackfoot speaks with authority about the shared sensibilities that drive the group: "Our mission remains unchanged: to preserve the life style and traditions and the land and waters of the Blackfoot. It's no longer a river story. It's a ridge-to-ridge story. We've been successful for a number of reasons. There was a common threat, that of subdivisions of beautiful, fertile land, that of unrestricted access—we had a common view of these threats. That view led to broad citizen participation, citizens gave of their time freely and patiently. Trust developed. And we have a large number of progressive-thinking, politically sophisticated landowners with access to financial resources. And we're not burdened by the suspicion of public agencies that you see in some ranching communities. We've had good relations with agency representatives. We sit down together as equals. Conversations are open-ended. We find common solutions to common problems." Seventy-five hundred people live in the Blackfoot Valley. Tim Love, Seeley Lake Lolo Forest ranger is one of the agency people Hank Goetz spoke about, one of the partners in representing the ecological interests of those seventy-five hundred people. He sees the work of The Blackfoot Challenge as a story of major accomplishments. "It's built a large community of people who cooperate with one another for everybody's good when it comes to the land. We've done important restoration work—wetlands, riparian areas, weed management work. We've done solid easement work. We've demonstrated what people working together can do. And we've learned how to take advantage of opportunities." The photograph of the "Heroes of Conservation" pictured in the referred to article in Field and Stream (see newsstand issue), highlights a group whose attitude and stance exemplify the vigor that went into responding to the threats Hank Goetz described. Land Lindbergh, missing in the photograph remains at bottom a Blackfoot Challenge person. As Becky Garland said, they were lucky. As others have commented, they have the good fortune to be protecting land that does not sit on valuable energy deposits, to have grown up hand in hand with agency people as good friends. But good fortune or not, they all would agree, that more often than not, The Blackfoot Challenge made its own luck.
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
|||||
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 16 January 2008 ) | |||||
Subscribe to this comment's feed
