DNRC to fill gaps in Swan Valley public land

The Montana Department of Natural Resources is in the process of securing the funds they need to purchase 14,000 acres of Swan Valley land held by the Nature Conservancy.

The 14,000 acres is part of the Swan Valley Conservation Project, a multi-resource managment plan overseen by the Swan Liason Team — Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the DNRC, and The Nature Conservancy. The group oversees management of Swan Valley conservation easements that FWP holds on 16,553 acres of DNRC and Nature Conservancy land.

The purchase slated for the end of the year, at around $400 an acre, will transfer the remaining Nature Conservancy land to DNRC ownership, bringing all publicly accessible and conservation easement land directly around Condon under managment by the DNRC.

The FWP conservation easement will stay in place after the sale of the land.

“They just want to erase that checkerboard and manage the whole thing,” FWP wildlife mitigation coordinator Alan Wood said.

DNRC currently manages the checkerboard of State Trust land that surrounds pieces of Nature Conservancy land bought from Plum Creek as part of the Montana Legacy Project in 2008.

In 2008 the Nature Conservancy bought 44,821 acres in the Swan Range from Plum Creek as part of a larger land deal with the lumber company.

The deal transferred 310,000 acres throughout Montana to the legacy project in order to protect the timber land from being subdivided into real estate land. Since that time, as money becomes available, the land is sold to the Forest Service and the DNRC to ensure that the land is still accessible to the public.

During the annual Swan Liason meeting on Oct. 1 at the Swan Lake Ranger Station in Bigfork questions surrounding some of the terms of the FWP conservation easement arose.

Wood noted the biggest issue has to do with what defines an abandoned or reclaimed road. Easement terms state that the total length of roads on the land will not be increased. So if roads are added to the land, then roads need to be reclaimed to obey the terms of the easement.

The DNRC and FWP need to agree on the number and length of roads that were on the land when Plum Creek sold it to The Nature Conservancy in 2008 so the terms of the 2010 easement can be satisfied.

Wood said the issue won’t hold up sale of the land as the two agencies will work cooperatively over the next year to iron out the total length of roads on the land.