MWA Winter Wilderness Walks schedule announced

News, ,

The MWA just posted their Winter Wilderness Walks schedule for 2015. Here’s the core information from the email announcement. . .

It’s that time of year again! Beginning this January, the Montana Wilderness Association is offering 57 guided snowshoe walks across some of the state’s most magnificent backcountry.

Now in its twelfth season, MWA’s Winter Wilderness Walks program offers hikers of all ages and experience levels an opportunity to participate in a traditional recreation opportunity while enjoying Montana’s quiet beauty and treasured wild places. Winter Wilderness Walks are also a great way to meet new people, explore and view wildlife in a winter setting.

All outings are free and open to the public, but participants need to preregister by visiting wildmontana.org/walks and selecting the “Preregister for this walk” link under each walk.

MWA will provide snowshoes for participants if necessary.

Supporters hail passage of North Fork bill

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Chris Peterson of the Hungry Horse News did a nice write-up on last Friday’s meeting with Senators Tester and Walsh . . .

A lot has changed since 2006, when Glacier National Park superintendent Mick Holm traveled north to Canada to meet with British Petroleum officials who were considering coal bed methane gas development in the Flathead River drainage.

“They tried to convince us they were a green company,” Holm recalled last week. “We tried to convince them the right thing to do was to not do anything.”

That was one of many battles over the future of the North Fork of the Flathead over the past 40 years. The struggle finally came to an end on Dec. 18 as President Obama signed the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act.

Read more . . .

Whitebark pine selectively bred to resist blister rust

Environmental Issues, News, ,

I’ve heard that the area around Hornet Lookout is one source of the seeds used in this project . . .

The U.S. Forest Service is growing disease-resistant whitebark pine trees to improve the chances of survival of the key high-elevation species, which blister rust is wiping out in the Northern Rockies.

“It’s just using the natural selection process and giving it a little bit of a boost,” said Tanya Murphy, a silviculturist with Great Falls-based Lewis and Clark National Forest.

Some whitebark pine trees have genetic traits that make them more resistant to disease.

Read more . . .

What’s wilderness worth? Montanans explore spiritual significance of wild places

Commentary,

Rob Chaney of the Missoulian posted an ambitious thought piece . . .

You’ve talked your friend/spouse/child into shouldering a heavy pack, enduring a painful blister, incurring dozens of mosquito bites, foregoing a soft bed and questioning his/her self respect and your good/evil intentions.

All for a turn in the trail that explains everything. An “ah-ha” moment of revelation. An encounter with God, some would say.

Can a wilderness waterfall or wandering grizzly bear really deliver all that meaning? Or is it just a fantasy humans impose on dirt that might hide gold and trees that might become houses in a place that Great-Grandma can’t reach anymore?

Read more . . .

Group gathers in West Glacier to celebrate North Fork protection

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Last Friday, December 19, a group of folks met with Senators Tester and Walsh at the Belton Inn in West Glacier to celebrate the passage of a number of Montana lands bills, including the North Fork Watershed Protection Act. Yours truly was there, along with a fair number of other North Forkers, conservationists, business people, community leaders and federal officials. The media was out in force. I knew perhaps a third of the folks in the room.

The meeting was informal, with both politicos in blue jeans and very accessible. They even showed up ahead of time to have more time to chat with the attendees. Everyone made a point, before and after the speechifying, of thanking the senators for getting legislation through the system that was developed collaboratively here in Montana. It was all very adult and non-political. Refreshing.

There’s been a ton of attention from both the press and from a number of conservation outfits. Rather than generate a bunch of individual posts, I’m going to do a roll-up here, with links to a representative sample of the online coverage . . .

Supporters Hail Passage of North Fork Bill as Conservation Milestone (Flathead Beacon; nice photos)

North Fork preservation celebrated in West Glacier (KPAX)

Obama signs bill protecting North Fork, Rocky Mountain Front (Helena Independent Record)

Victory for the Crown of the Continent (Montanans for Healthy Rivers newsletter; also has nice Trail Creek article)

Group seeks grizzly re-introduction in Selway-Bitterroot

Environmental Issues, News,

The Center for Biological Diversity is pushing to have grizzlies re-introduced into the Selway-Bitteroot . . .

An advocacy group has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot area of Idaho and Montana.

The Center for Biological Diversity said Thursday that it hopes to revive a stalled recovery plan for the animals that was finalized in 2000.

The group says having bears in the Selway-Bitterroot would help connect grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park with other populations of the animals in Montana and Idaho. It says the 16-million-acre area could support 300 to 600 bears.

Read more . . .

Protections blocked, but sage grouse work continues

Environmental Issues, News,

The feds will keep investigating the status of the sage grouse, even though they can’t actually do anything about it right now . . .

U.S. wildlife officials will decide next year whether a wide-ranging Western bird species needs protections even though Congress has blocked such protections from taking effect, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday.

They could determine the greater sage grouse is heading toward possible extinction, but they would be unable to intervene under the Endangered Species Act. The bird’s fate instead remains largely in the hands of the 11 individual states where they are found…

Jewell said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will continue collecting and analyzing data on sage grouse. A decision on whether protections are warranted will be reached by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, Interior officials said.

Read more . . .

Woo-hoo! Senate passes defense bill with North Fork and Rocky Mountain Front additions intact

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , ,

At 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, the annual National Defense Authorization Act, along with a package of Montana lands bills including the North Fork Watershed Protection Act and the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, was passed by the Senate and sent on to President Barack Obama’s desk for signature.

This is very good news for the protection of the North Fork. It is also excellent news for our friends on the Rocky Mountain Front, not to mention carrying with it the first new wilderness additions in Montana in 31 years.

Here’s the lead-in for an early article in the Missoulian. We’ll add links to more coverage (see below) as it occurs . . .

The Senate voted to pass its annual National Defense Authorization Act on Friday , sending Montana’s first wilderness additions in 33 years to President Barack Obama’s desk.

The vote wound up at 3 p.m. after several attempts to add amendments and return it to committee. The final tally was 89-11, with both Montana Democratic senators Jon Tester and John Walsh voting in favor. Walsh held the gavel as Senate chairman at the start of the vote.

The National Defense Authorization Act authorizes $585 billion in Pentagon discretionary spending and $63.7 billion in overseas contingency operations. Those dollars go to things like developing the F-35 fighter jet, maintaining nuclear weapons, operating aircraft carriers and paying military personnel.

It also includes a package of 70 public land management bills; the biggest collection since the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. They create about 250,000 acres of new wilderness designations and protection of other lands from energy development…

Read more . . .

More coverage:

Senate passes North Fork, Rocky Front bill (Hungry Horse News)

Senate Approves Montana Lands Package (Flathead Beacon – good article)

Congress Approves Montana Wilderness (Associated Press)

Tester: U.S. Senate maneuvers kept land bills uncertain until final vote (Missoulian)

Montana lands package roll-up nears finish line

Environmental Issues, News, , , , ,

An “historic” lands package including provisions of significant impact on Northwest Montana approaches a critical vote in the Senate . . .

A raft of public lands measures is headed for a vote in the U.S. Senate this week following a last-minute series of negotiations between the state’s congressional leaders, who together marshaled a bundle of Montana bills into the historic package.

The product of 11th-hour arbitrations that nearly collapsed in the waning moments of Dec. 2, the sprawling lands package was rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act, a must-pass piece of legislation that has lawmakers optimistic it would sail through the Senate with the lands bills intact.

Read more . . .

Feds decide not to upgrade protections for Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies

Environmental Issues, News,

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies are butting heads over the status of the grizzly bear population in the Cabinet-Yaak region . . .

Federal wildlife officials last week declined to upgrade protections for a small population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet Mountains and Yaak River drainage in Northwest Montana, sparking outcry from a conservation organization that claims the population is nearing extinction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a decision in the Federal Register on Dec. 5 that said grizzlies living in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem are stable and likely to reach a recovery goal of 100 without changing their status from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act…

Read more . . .