Conservation in Focus

The three pillars of our work at Whitefish Legacy Partners are conservation, recreation, and education. Most often when you open our emails you’ll find news from the Whitefish Trail with events and trail reports. None of the trails we love - the sweeping views or lakeside benches we stop to enjoy would be possible without our conservation work. Starting in 2024, and from time to time, we will bring this conservation-focused news to your inbox to share about the amazing projects protecting the places we love throughout the Valley and Northwest Montana. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating this work which has made our corner of the state such a special place to live, for us and for future generations.

CONNECTING TO THE CROWN OF THE CONTINENT

From the southern end of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex near Lincoln, Montana north almost to Banff, Alberta is an area spanning over 10 million acres of high peaks and broad river valleys known as the Crown of the Continent. In large part thanks to its great swaths of connected conservation lands, it is one of the most intact ecosystems left in the United States. Protecting connectivity in landscapes like the Crown will be critical in meeting many of the most urgent environmental challenges we’ll face in the coming decades such as biodiversity loss and climate change resilience.

Grizzly bear radio collar tracks show the interruption of its path by Interstate 90.

Wildlife needs room to roam and follow shifting habitats: adult male grizzly bears can have a home range of 600 square miles, and a similar range is needed by wolverines who can range up to 15 miles a day. Busy roads, fence lines, and housing developments can fragment their habitats, squeezing out their already vulnerable populations.

Here in the Flathead Valley we’re bordered by millions of acres of public lands, much of it dedicated to protecting these habitats. What happens in between our national parks and wilderness areas is equally important to building critical connectivity. There are many different approaches to conservation outside of public lands, and they are all important. A five-acre conservation easement placed on an individual’s home by Flathead Land Trust, the 1,500-acre Public Recreation Use Easement protecting State Trust Lands around Lion Mountain and Beaver Lakes by Whitefish Legacy Partners and City of Whitefish, and the 150,000 acres of former private timberland west of Kalispell protected by The Trust for Public Lands all play necessary and interconnected roles. One approach without the others will only get us so far. Protecting the head of Whitefish Lake through our Smith Lake-Swift Creek Legacy Project is necessary to ensure low-elevation habitat connectivity between state lands and Flathead National Forest.

Our corner of Montana certainly isn’t alone in recognizing the necessity of these diverse conservation approaches. The 30x30 initiative has governments from local towns, states, tribes, and countries pledging to designate 30% of lands and waterways as protected areas by 2030. Our community is lucky to have so many wonderful organizations, agencies, and community leaders engaged in working towards this goal across the Crown of the Continent, and Whitefish Legacy Partners is proud to join them.

A 20+ YEAR VISION FOR SMITH LAKE-SWIFT CREEK

Successfully connecting landscapes through conservation requires a big vision and years of planning and forethought. Twenty years ago the Whitefish Area Trust Lands Neighborhood Plan (NP) was developed and adopted by the State of Montana, Flathead County, and the City of Whitefish. The Plan envisioned innovative land management strategies to protect portions of the 13,000 acres of State Trust Lands surrounding Whitefish Lake while also fulfilling the State's mandate to generate revenue for MT schools and universities. Your favorite sections of the Whitefish Trail, scenic benches, and lake access were all built based the Whitefish Neighborhood Plan. 

The Smith Lake-Swift Creek Legacy Project is the next step in bringing the vision of the Neighborhood Plan to life. As we near our goal of permanent protection for high-value lands at the head of Whitefish Lake, the vision will continue to benefit our community for decades.