Event covers conservation easements

The Montana Forest Stewardship Foundation and the Montana Association of Land Trusts are teaming up to bring “A Forest Owner’s Introduction to Conservation Easements” workshop to Libby on Friday, March 26.

The free workshop will run 2-5 p.m., in the Ponderosa Room of Libby City Hall, located at 952 E. Spruce.

“The purpose of the workshop is for landowners to have an opportunity to hear directly from folks who deal with conservation easements on an everyday basis,” said Ed Levert, Lincoln County forester and a member of the Montana Forest Stewardship Foundation. “For a landowner, the decision to place a conservation easement on your property is a major decision, and this workshop should help provide landowners with the type of information they need.”

A conservation easement is a use of a private property right to create a voluntary, negotiated and permanent agreement between a landowner and a land trust, or public agency, that limits development and maintains open lands.

Workshop speakers include Charlie Decker, longtime logger, former Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks commissioner and a founding member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Glenn Marx, executive director of the Montana Association of Land Trusts.

Levert will also moderate a panel of speakers that includes Gary Ellingson, a forestry consultant with Northwest Management; Mark Schiltz, western area director the Montana Land Reliance and a landowner with a conservation easement on his property; Alan Wood, wildlife mitigation coordinator with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks; and Kirk Sullivan, a district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

For more information, call Levert at 293-2847 or Marx at 406-490-1659.