Swan Range | North Fork Preservation Association

The Swan Range - Lee Boman — The Swan Range – Lee Boman

The Missoulian’s Rob Chaney posted a good overview of the issues and debates surrounding Senator Jon Tester’s new wilderness bill, the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act. The article includes links to supporting documents . . .

A week after Sen. Jon Tester released his Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, some wilderness advocates question what it might really do.

Now designated as S. 507, the bill resurrects a portion of Tester’s 8-year-old Forest Jobs and Recreation Act affecting the southwest corner of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. That bill ran into opposition from some environmentalists and U.S. Forest Service officials who objected to the way it mandated commercial work in the forests.

The new bill has raised eyebrows for the compromises it’s made with mountain biking groups.

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From the Missoulian . . .

Despite a legacy of conservation in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, a biologist told Glacier National Park employees Tuesday that 1.3 million acres of roadless public lands remain vulnerable, and with them a suite of fish and wildlife species…

Although the core of the ecosystem is protected by the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Great Bear wildernesses – as well as the first-ever Tribal Wilderness in the Mission Mountains – 1.33 million acres of roadless area “is still up for grabs,” Weaver said…

…he stressed the importance of habitat connectivity along the periphery of conservation lands in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, and in particular on the Rocky Mountain Front, along the North and Middle Forks of the Flathead River, and in the Swan Range.

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