Which Montana? How To Save The Last Best Place...

Money still doesn't grow on trees...

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In Which Montana? we explain what is happening in what Montanan’s frequently call “The Last Best Place,” a nod to the late William Kittredge who, with Annick Smith, wrote The Last Best Place, an anthology published by the University of Washington Press in 1990.

According to the Montana State University Forest Extension Service, Montana spans 93 million acres. Of this expanse, 23 million acres are forested.

Most of what is forested is publicly owned by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and the State of Montana.

About 40,000 non-industrial private landowners – Tree Farmers and ranchers - own 23 percent. When help is needed, they turn to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the federal Natural Resources and Conservation Service, the Montana Tree Farm Association and the Montana Forest Owners Association.

Weyerhaeuser – owns a little over 1 million acres. It is managed for timber production by a Real Estate Investment Trust.

Six tribes collectively own the remaining four percent. Tribes can get help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs but larger tribal owners have held self-governance rights since 1994. Congress also approved the Tribal Forest Protection Act in 1994. It gives tribes the right to thin trees in adjacent at-risk federal forests that threaten their lands.

Tribes routinely contract with federal land management agencies that need help managing their forests, particularly with firefighting and tree planting. Contrary to what some believe, tribes meet or exceed every federal environmental law or regulation including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Forest Service’s 15.5 million acres are the focal point of this report. These lands are held in 10 National Forests. Of the 10, mortality exceeds growth in nine, meaning these forests are dying faster than they are growing.

Growth still exceeds mortality in Northwest Montana’s Kootenai National Forest, but it is slowing as the tree canopy closes. As insect, disease and wildfire risk increases - the diversity and type of wildlife habitat decreases.

We thus pose a rhetorical question  that only those living in “The Last Best Place” can answer...
Do they want a future that is green and hope filled or the one what is black and grim?

Intuitively, most Montanans want a green and hope filled future, but they don’t all agree on how to get there.

Some prefer to allow Nature to take its course. Others favor the certainty of more active forest management, especially thinning in federally-owned forests that have grown too dense for the natural carrying capacity of the land – those in which mortality now exceeds growth by wide margins.

In this publication we take a deep dive into the science behind climate change in a thought-provoking essay titled "What is Climate Smart Forestry?"

Author Peter Kolb is a Extension Forestry Specialist at Montana State University and Associate Professor of Forest Ecology and Management at the University of Montana. He holds a PhD in Forest and Range Ecophysiology and is a member of the Evergreen Foundation Board of Directors.

We also explore The Montana Forest Action Plan in depth. Former Governor Steve Bullock, leveraged the 2014 federal Farm Bill with his 2017 Forest Focus 2.0 Initiative. The result is the collaboratively developed 2023 Montana Forest Action Plan...and it's working.

Which Montana? covers a variety of additional topics related to the science, theories, and efforts to restore The Last Best Place.

We hope you find it valuable in the ongoing discussion of how we foster forest-to-community health and resiliency.

Click on the QR codes in the publication and you will be taken to additional content - much of it on our resource page. Scroll to the QR Code number you need and click on the associated links.

Enjoy!