Board to vote on conservation easement near Libby

Nearly 33,000 acres west of Kalispell are slated for permanent protection under a conservation easement being considered by the Montana Land Board next week.  

The Land Board will either confirm or deny the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks proposal to purchase the first phase of the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement project — 32,981 acres — from Green Diamond Resource Company.  

The Land Board meets Oct. 21 in Helena. 

The first phase is in the Salish and Cabinet mountains between Kalispell and Libby. The second phase, which project organizers hope to see secured next year, would bring the total for the easement to 85,792 acres.  

Several organizations and grants helped fund the first phase with an appraised value of $39.5 million, including Habitat Montana, the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program and private fundraising through the Trust for Public Lands. Green Diamond Resource Company, the landowner of the property, committed to donate around 35% of the easement’s appraised value.  

The easement would preclude development in perpetuity, maintain timber industry production, protect habitat and connectivity and provide permanent free public recreation access. Chunks of the easement are located in Lincoln, Flathead and Sanders counties. 

Green Diamond would still retain ownership of the parcel once the conservation easement is complete. The land would remain available for forest management, as the goal of the easement is to preserve working timber lands, according to Jason Callahan, policy and communications manager of Green Diamond.  

The property currently produces approximately 2 million board feet per year, according to Green Diamond. The goal is to increase that to 9 million by 2064.

Green Diamond bought the land at the end of 2021, an area that has traded ownership between timber companies multiple times over recent decades. Upon purchase, Green Diamond was already in conversation about placing the tract under an easement.  

“Those lands are what’s left of a much larger block of intact working forest lands,” Callahan said. “The value of that intact piece of land is there, but from a management perspective it needs some time to heal.” 

The land will stay on the tax roll through continuing private ownership.

“We’re just expiring the development rights and agreeing to maintain public access,” he said.  

After a series of environmental assessments by FWP, public hearings and comment periods, the state agency officially submitted its recommendation that the Land Board approve the easement.  

Lee Anderson, Region 1 supervisor with the state agency, found that the conservation easement would meet goals of maintaining timber harvest while protecting habitat and providing public access.  

The easement would “prevent current or future landowners from developing the property, thereby protecting fish and wildlife habitat and potential for future sustainable timber harvest” and would also maintain free recreational public access in perpetuity, he noted in his decision letter.   

The state agency received substantive public comment expressing concern that the easement would prevent public access to the lands. However, as the state agency points out the easement would guarantee public access even if Green Diamon were to sell the land in the future.  

This is one of many easements that the Trust for Public Land has been involved in over the years. The organization has completed large timberland conservation easements for years, according to Dick Dolan, associate vice president and Northern Rockies director for the land trust. 

These include working with various companies, including FH Stoltze Land & Lumber Co., Stimson Lumber, Weyerhaeuser, Southern Pine Plantations and now Green Diamond Resource Company.  

“[Protecting the timber industry] is one of the many, many reasons this is important and a great benefit to Montana and Montana citizens ... the Montanan timber industry has been declining over the last few decades,” Dolan said. “This easement supports the working forests, timber jobs and the public access that has been on these lands historically.” 

The land is important for many species native to Northwest Montana. The easement will also help preserve the water quality and habitat and actual resources on the land by ensuring the land will be maintained, not developed.

“Things are changing, and this stops the change, it keeps this the way it always has been,” Callahan said. 

Completion of the easement would build on nearby protected lands including the nearly 142,000-acre Thompson-Fisher Conservation Easement held by Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the 100,000-acre U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lost Trail Conservation Area and other protected lands including the Kootenai and Lolo National forests, the Thompson Chain of Lakes State Park and Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation lands.