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The Stimson Lumber Company owns forestland across the Pacific Northwest, but it sees challenges in Northwest Montana’s growing population.
Barry Dexter, the firm’s director of resources, says that developing areas’ lands “come out of timber production and go into mini-ranches or home sites for folks, and so that’s a little challenging for a fire management perspective, and it reduces the amount of land for the timber base.”
About 22,275 acres of the company’s land near Libby could avoid that outcome. If Stimson, conservation groups, state officials and Montana’s congressional delegation have their way, a conservation easement will allow forestry there to continue while preventing development.
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Under a conservation easement, a landowner agrees to place certain restrictions on use of the land. Those restrictions are bought and held by a land trust or government agency, and stay on the land even if it’s sold.
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“It’s forested land and would be maintained as a working forest with conservation values,” explained Ken McDonald, wildlife division administrator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The proposed easement, he stressed, “doesn’t take it out of the management scheme.” Stimson will retain the right to harvest timber on the land. But the easement “helps ensure [that] the management and the long-term use of that land is compatible with wildlife.”
Montana chose the property as its sole entry in what’s described as a highly competitive grant process. If it advances, an appraisal will determine its value. For now, the state’s requesting $6 million for the easement. It awaits assessment by a national review panel, which will rank the submitted proposals in mid-January.
