Community group gets forestland.The checkerboard checkerboard the pattern of a chess or draft board; used in many circumstances to display the results of mixing a specific number of variables. The variables are listed in columns designated along the horizontal border and the same or different variables in lines along the vertical that defines Swan Valley, Montana, has a new green square. A $10.7 million agreement--reached last fall by the Trust for Public Land, Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a U.S. self-financed federal agency which transmits and sells wholesale electricity in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. The BPA is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. , and Plum Creek Timber Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL) is the largest private landowner in the United States. Most of its lands were originally purchased as timberland.[1] Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Plum Creek was spun off from Burlington Resources as a master limited Company--protects 1,761 acres from development in the spectacular valley in northwestern Montana between the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountains wilderness The Mission Mountains Wilderness is located in the U.S. state of Montana. Created by an act of Congress in 1975, the wilderness is within the Swan Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest. U.S. areas. The transaction represents a victory for the Swan Ecosystem Center and its five-year effort to obtain forestland for·est·land n. A section of land covered with forest or set aside for the cultivation of forests. to benefit this rural community (see Winter 2005 issue). Under the multi-party pact, the nonprofit citizens group acquired half of a 640-acre section in the Elk Creek drainage, a critical habitat for the native bull trout federal officials consider a threatened species. The Ecosystem Center, based in Condon, will focus on enhancing the fishery and related habitat under a management plan with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which acquired the other 320 acres in the Elk Creek section. "It's kind of stunning," says Anne Dahl, the Ecosystem Center's executive director. "This is the most important piece of land in the valley and we got it for the community." The Elk Creek area is part of the 1,761 acres protected under the transaction, which was funded by a grant from the Bonneville Power Administration. The remaining land completes a 7,204-acre conservation easement easement, in law, the right to use the land of another for a specified purpose, as distinguished from the right to possess that land. If the easement benefits the holder personally and is not associated with any land he owns, it is an easement in gross (e.g. in the Goat and Squeezer creek drainages in the Swan River State Forest at the north end of the valley. The Ecosystem Center plans to manage the Elk Creek land to maintain corridors for wildlife, including gray wolves and grizzlies The name Grizzlies may refer to:
She credits the Center's accomplishment to broad-based local support, a long-term commitment, and complicated partnerships with the potential to benefit all parties. Her advice to other community groups trying to acquire forestlands is simple: "Keep youR head down and keep working." |
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