State Land Board OKs preliminary approval of local conservation easement

For generations, the vast private timberlands across Lincoln County have been the lifeblood of the local economy and grown into the cultural fabric of the community.

“We’re the Libby Loggers. That’s what we do. It’s in our DNA,” Mark Peck, Lincoln County’s natural resource advisor and former county commissioner, told the Montana Land Board at its Oct. 21 meeting. “These lands are existential to the citizens of Lincoln County, not only from an economic standpoint, which is huge, but from a cultural standpoint. And we’re talking five and six generations of families that have camped, hunted, fished and ATVed on these lands. It makes Lincoln County very unique.”

Peck spoke on behalf of the Lincoln County Commissioners in favor of the Montana State Board of Land Commissioners approving a 32,981-acre conservation easement agreement with Green Diamond Resource Company. The five-member Land Board, comprising the state’s five top elected officials, heard public comment on the matter before ultimately voting to preliminarily approve the project.

The conservation easement is Phase One of the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement Project, proposed by Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks in 2021, which would ultimately protect 85,792 acres of working forest land around the Thompson Chain of Lakes owned by Green Diamond. 

The private timber company owns nearly 300,000 acres between Kalispell and Libby across Flathead, Lincoln and Sanders counties and under the easement, the land would remain in private ownership and contribute to the tax base of the three counties, while also allowing for permanent public access for recreation. 

The easement would also add to the patchwork of protected land in the region creating wildlife habitat corridors throughout northwest Montana.

“Green Diamond has purchased land that needs some time to rest. It needs some time to heal. That doesn’t come for free. We need to fund forest management. We need to fund fire resilience. We need to fund our forester from Libby,” Jason Callahan, Green Diamond’s policy and communications manager, told the Land Board. “What this program does for us is allows us the time for that land to heal and bring it back into production. There is economic activity on the land. There is forest management happening. It’s just not paying for itself yet. That’s going to take between 10 and 30 years to the land to pay for itself and be an active participant in the local timber markets. This is our bridge. This is how we get there.”

The value of the first phase of the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement is approximately $40 million. Funding for the project came together from myriad public and private sources including $1.5 million from FWP’s Habitat Montana, which is funded through hunting licenses and was approved by the FWP commission in August; $4.2 million from private fundraising coordinated by the nonprofit Trust for Public Lands; and $20 million from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program, which provides funding to conserve working forests. Green Diamond covered the remaining $13.8 million as an in-kind contribution.

State Superintendent Elsie Arntzen expressed concerns that utilizing federal funding would come with strings attached to the project. Alan Zackheim, a land agent with FWP, explained that the pot of federal funding is specifically set aside for projects like this and any requirements are written into the easement already, including that the land be maintained as working forest and cannot be put under different designations, such as federal wilderness.

Additional public comments in favor of the conservation easement came from representatives of FH Stoltze Land and Lumber Company in Columbia Falls, Stimson Lumber Company, the Montana Wildlife Federation and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, as well as in letters of support from all three county commissions within the project area. Dick Dolan, Northern Rockies director for Trust for Public Lands, also spoke about the years spent bringing this agreement to fruition.

“This is an investment in the future of Montana’s timber economy, and I don’t think it’s overblown to say this is a tipping point,” Dolan said. “Having worked with these companies now for 10 years, it is critical that we find a way to keep these lands producing timber for the future. We know what the alternative is. We all have seen it all across the state, and I think the broad range of support you’re hearing is the citizens of Montana saying, ‘We want the timber industry to survive. We want it to thrive.’”

Despite the overwhelmingly favorable public comments, several land board members were hesitant to move forward over concerns about privately-owned subsurface mineral rights.

Peter Scott, an attorney for WRH Nevada Properties — which owns 42% of the property’s mineral rights — and Citizens for Balanced Use, filed suit in Lincoln County District Court earlier this year requesting a delay in the Land Board’s decision. He appeared before the board expressing his concerns over the easement’s potential effect on WRH’s mineral rights. 

“When you juxtapose [mineral development] with the intent of this project to protect conservation values in perpetuity, you find that the two things are diametrically opposed,” Scott said, urging the elected officials to take more time to consider the proposal.

Officials with FWP and representatives from Green Diamond stated that the language of the easement does not limit WRH’s ability to extract resources. In addition, a court order from Lincoln County District Court Judge Matthew Cuffe on Oct. 8 also clarified that “it is unreasonable to interpret the plain language of the Proposed Easement as interfering with WRH Nevada’s mineral rights.”

However, members of the land board still felt there should be more precise language clarifying those rights in the agreement. Gov. Greg Gianforte pushed for a vote on the project contingent on seeing additional language about preserving mineral rights at the board’s meeting next month.

“I’m just thinking about the logistics of the process by which we do this. We have a lot of folks that have invested their energy, not just today, but over years, to get to this point, to make a decision,” Gianforte said. “If we end up not passing this, we’re missing a huge opportunity for the people in this northwest portion of the state.”

Attorney General Austin Knudsen said he was against the easement because he “fundamentally” doesn’t agree with perpetual easements. “Forever is a long time. Things change.”

The all-Republican land board voted 3-2 to approve the conservation easement, contingent on reviewing the language around mineral rights at their November meeting. Gianforte, State Auditor Troy Downing and Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen supported the measure, while Arntzen and Knudsen were opposed.

“There’s been a lot of work put into this. I would like to be on record supporting this easement with the condition that we’ve added,” Gianforte said.

FWP officials told the governor it would be a “top priority” to craft language that will satisfy the intent of the land board by their next meeting, where the board will take a final vote.