By Michael Howell
Twenty-six land and wildlife managers from 16 different countries visited the Bitterroot Valley last week as part of the 2016 International Seminar on Protected Area Management.
The trip to the Bitterroot was only one part of a jam-packed tour of Western Montana that included trips to Glacier National Park, the Iverson Ranch on the Potomac, the Seeley Lake District Ranger Station, Pyramid Lumber, the Smoke Jumper Center, Flathead Biological Station at Yellow Bay, the Bison Range, and Yellowstone National Park.
While in the Bitterroot, the group visited the KBK Conservation Easement at Lost Horse Bend on the Bitterroot River and the Magruder Ranger Station, as well as making a trip to the Hell’s Half Acre Fire Lookout.
Most of the seminar participants were from African countries including Tunisia, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Botswana, Sierra Leon, Egypt, Gabon and Zimbabwe. Others hailed from Israel, Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Armenia and Georgia.
Many of the participants are managing land in their country for wildlife very different than what is found in Montana, including elephants, rhinoceros, tigers, giant ant-eaters, and snow leopards. Although many of the problems faced in managing land for large ungulates like elk and deer, mountain lion and bear are similar, there are methods of management that are being used here in the Bitterroot that differ substantially from what is found elsewhere in the world.
Participants got to hear from Lea Guthrie, Stewardship Coordinator for the Bitter Root Land Trust, about a unique conservation tool that is being used very successfully in the Bitterroot, the placement of conservation easements on the land to protect it from development.
The group toured the KBK Ranch conservation easement, a 160-acre easement at the confluence of Lost Horse Creek and the Bitterroot River, called Lost Horse Bend.
Joe Rimesberger, ranch caretaker, said that the owners of the ranch, Keith (deceased) and Bea Evans, bought the ranch in the 1960s but did not move onto the property. According to Rimesberger, Keith was a wildlife hunter but had become a wildlife watcher. Some horses and cattle were grazed on the land in the past, but for the most part it was just a place to come and ride horses and enjoy the wildlife. And that’s the way it will remain in perpetuity, thanks to the work of the Bitter Root Land Trust.
Guthrie explained how the conservation easements work by limiting development on private land and preserving it for open space and wildlife. Although the land trust is interested in developing easements in crucial areas such as wildlife corridors, it also supports the agricultural use of the land and most of the easements in the Bitterroot are on working farms and ranches.
The seminar participants had lots of questions, each one looking for information, programs and techniques that could possibly be used in their home country.
Not everything that is learned here will be applicable back home, at least not in the exact form that is used here in Montana. For instance, placing conservation easement restrictions on the property deed is not something that is going to happen in Zambia. Although people living in the cities may have a deed to their property issued by the municipality, there is no private property and thus no deeds to any land outside the towns. Instead, the local chief allows people to use certain plots of land but no ownership is involved.
But many of the programs and methods used in Montana for managing land for wildlife can be useful almost anywhere, such as the concept of wildlife-friendly fencing.
Who knows? What we have done in Montana in terms of wildlife conservation could end up helping managers handle tigers in Nepal.