the local land Trust’s in the state
there are about five of us we operate in
a four county region and we’re kind of
in west central Montana one of the
things we’re most known for is that 75
miles of singletrack trail that we
manage and maintain in Helena south
hills trail system we also have a pretty
major private land conservation program
where we work with primarily with
ranchers to protect wildlife habitat and
open space on working farms and ranches
through the use of conservation
easements and then our third program is
community conservation and today I’m
I’ll talk focus mostly on that aspect of
what prickly pear land trust does so
community conservation is a term that
has been fairly new in the conservation
community but is one that if you’re a
good conservation organization you’ve
been doing community conservation for a
long time and it is defined as when a
organization like prickly pear acquires
usually it’s through an acquisition
acquires a property and in that
acquisition er in that project there are
a diverse number of community
stakeholders and user groups who will at
the end of the project have benefited
from it in a multitude of different ways
about a year ago prickly pear Land Trust
had a really great project come forward
and we weren’t really sure what it was
going to end up being but what ended up
happening is that we kind of just let it
organically develop and we got to know
our neighbors we acquired two hundred
and five acres in between Fort Harrison
out there on the west side of town and
the Archie Bray center that you just
heard about and then our other neighbor
is spring meadow resources who services
folks with developmental disabilities
the property runs also a long ten milk
when prickly pear first acquired that
property we were really exactly sure
what what we were going to end up with
and actually we’re still not completely
sure but we’ve come quite a way in our
thinking and and it’s been through the
communication that we’ve had with mostly
our neighbors out there but with other
stakeholders in the community with a
really diverse set of interests and
backgrounds and needs so the land trust
alliance is the National Association of
groups like prickly pear Land Trust and
they’ve identified this project that we
are calling Peaks two creeks they’ve
identified it as one of the best
examples of community conservation in
the nation right here in Helena Montana
it is because of the diversity in the
user groups and the diverse benefits
that that project will bring so close
your eyes for a minute and imagine a
retired military leader with PTSD who
has been treated at the VA’s hospital
that hospital is the only place where
that veteran can receive intensive
treatment here in the state of Montana
leave a second highest rate of veteran
PTSD in the entire US and just across
the street now that veteran can access
the open space and the outdoors but also
the solitude of the creek of 10 Mile
Creek the doctors at the VA are now
saying that having access to the
outdoors is one of the key factors in a
veteran’s ultimate success rate in
dealing with something like PTSD the
same thing applies for some of the other
ailments that that face vets so there’s
one person and then standing next to
that veteran is a new recruit soldier
who’s training to be deployed for the
first time and she gets to do her PT
exercises now right across william
street in the big open field there next
to the archie bray and 10 mile creek to
run her two mile loop that she does
every day standing next to her is a
ceramic artist from the Archie Bray
who might use that space as inspiration
for the art that he or she does and
standing next to the ceramic artist is a
single mom with two kids who likes to go
to spring meadow lake state park say and
she goes there because it’s a great
place where she can push the stroller on
the flatter trails it’s also a state
park so that the admission is free and
it’s close to our house now imagine
standing next to that person is an
individual with developmental
disabilities who lives at spring meadow
resources which is the facility right
next to Montana wild and George is
distributing that is the place where a
lot of the folks who work at Helen
industries live and then standing next
to that person is a conservationist like
myself who’s excited about that
acquisition because it will give the
community the opportunity to have an
education and an access to 10 Mile Creek
but also additional open space and once
we’re completed with some of the the
trail work out there a bridge over 10
mile and some new trails that connect to
the VA that picture of those people
standing next to one another that is
exactly what community conservation
means it means that when an organization
achieves the conservation objective that
that’s really great but it means a lot
more for the community if there are
diverse interests standing next to one
another who also see other benefits and
that and that project also brings other
benefits to the community those projects
strengthen communities in ways that are
so much beyond what we would achieve if
we were just singularly focused on our
own needs or our own interests there are
a lot of great examples of this
throughout the state of Montana but
again that one is is unique and it
wasn’t that we planned it because of
those diverse interests that are located
around
property if I was looking for community
conservation projects now that would be
a great place to go but it just sort of
happened to come together the way that
it has and that was about a year ago and
we acquired that property and since then
we spent quite a bit of time with people
like Steve at the Archie Bray and
doctors from the VA trying to figure out
how we can make it the most accessible
and the best for whatever those other
community interests and needs are so
that’s that’s one example of community
conservation I’m going to break for a
second just to talk about why community
conservation matters so much beyond just
the obvious reasons of bringing a
diverse amount of benefit to a community
for the strengthening in the Alliance
building that that does for anything
really for any industry or any you know
doesn’t really matter what you do but
for for conservation if we’re going to
be relevant on into the future we need
to look more like and address the needs
of what the future is and when I think
about what it’s going to take for my
kids to stand up and make sure that they
do their part to make sure that
conservation and open space and things
like trails are available on into the
future it’s it’s we have to be relevant
and in order for us to be relevant we
have to make sure that that we are
appealing to the things that are going
to be important for future generations
in that project the one of the examples
it really jumps out is at me as having
access to 10 Mile Creek Ten Mile Creek
is our community’s water source and that
property will now provide the only
access to it in the entire urban
boundary that’s going to be a really
really important thing as we start to
see more and more challenges to things
like water quantity and quality on into
the future and it’s you know the the
basic benefits of just the conservation
education opportunity are great and
obvious but those are the things that
make community conservation for for me
when I think about conservation three
for generations from now it’ll mean a
lot more to to my daughter and to her
kids if we’re making sure that we’re
relevant and that we mean something to
everybody and you know luckily in
Montana we community and conservation
kind of balance the things that most
people here can relate to most people
value their community they’ve out and
that can be defined in a number of ways
obviously but they value their community
they also value conservation whether
they call it conservation or not they
value the land in the water and the
mountains and the trails and the things
that that we that improve our quality of
life by by living here and so it’s this
this topic is one that I am really
getting more and more excited about and
and really appreciate the opportunity to
be here today again and and visiting with you also thank you so much