Easement protects family land forever

The Flathead River, agricultural fields, and a big red barn make the perfect backdrop for Diamond B Weddings.

These three items also make up the the Brostens’ 192-acre property with one-and-a-half miles of riverfront in the Lower Valley. It’s been in the family for four generations, and the Brostens aim to keep it as it is for perpetuity.

It took almost two years to get the conservation easement that would make it possible into place.

“We have deep roots here,” Jerry Brosten said. “It was a good opportunity to protect the land long after we’re gone, and you don’t get the opportunity to do that very often.”

In December 2011, the Brostens signed an easement with the Flathead Land Trust as part of the River to Lake Initiative. Brosten said he learned about the initiative when his neighbors, the Loudens, partially donated conservation easements (sold part and donated part of the easement value) on over 1,000 acres of their land through the initiative in 2009.

The easement enables the Brostens to retain ownership of their land. They will continue to farm their land and run their wedding business, but they gave up the right to significantly develop the land.

That land will never be subdivided. This was especially important to the Brostens because they wanted the land to stay as is for their family.

“For us, it was important to keep this because we didn’t know if they (their kids) would come back or not, you know 200 acres isn’t enough to make a living,” Brosten said. “This way at least they’ll have it.”

And if their future generations want to sell it, the land will stay as it is, open.

As part of the easement the Brostens also agreed to provide a 100-foot buffer area along the river and revegetate that buffer area with native plants. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Services will help the Brostens with the revegetation project.

Both agencies are partners with groups like the Flathead Land Trust on River to Lake Initiative projects. The Montana Wetland Council awarded initiative partners with the 2011 Wetland Stewardship Award for their work.

River to Lake Intiative partners have protected over 5,000 acres of what are deemed critical lands since 2000. Some of those acres are lands protected through conservation easements and some of that land has been donated.

Flathead Lakers Critical Lands Director Constanza von der Pahlen said critical lands are riparian areas, wetlands and open farmland along the river corridor, on the north shore of Flathead Lake and in the 100-year flood plain.

The Flathead Lakers work with the Flathead Land Trust and other River to Lake partners to help coordinate land protection projects like the Brostens’ conservation easement.

“Each conservation easement is very different,” von der Pahlen said.

The terms of each easement depend on what the land owner’s needs are, where the funding to buy the easement comes from and where the land is located.

Ryan Hunter from the Flathead Land Trust said money from the Bonneville Power Administration and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm and Ranch Protection Program went toward purchasing the Brostens’ conservation easement. Farm and ranch program money goes to preserving open ranch and farmland, while Bonneville Power money goes to helping restore and protect habitat along the Flathead River below the Hungry Horse Dam.

When it comes to conservation easements, Hunter said often times land owners initiate the process.

“We find a lot of longtime landowners who have roots in the community, they love their land and they want to protect it after they’re gone,” Hunter said. “It’s really a love of the land and their family heritage they’re trying to protect.”