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Local conservationist outlines how easements, deals and bonds preserved Missoula’s Rattlesnake
Summary
Bruce, a longtime Montana conservationist, traced five decades of private-land conservation and local campaigns that protected the Rattlesnake: conservation-easement law in 1975, negotiated deals with Montana Power Company, the Bugbee Nature Preserve, and municipal bonds to buy Mount Jumbo.
Bruce, a conservationist who has worked in Montana since 1972, told a Rattlesnake Creek Watershed Group audience on Feb. 20 that private-land tools and negotiated deals saved large swaths of habitat around Missoula.
“The legislature enabled conservation easements in 1975 in Montana,” Bruce said, explaining that easements let owners limit development rights while retaining title. He said Montana has conserved “something over 6,000,000 acres” in the roughly 50 years since the law passed, split between easements and public-acquisition projects.
Bruce described the specific local history that sparked action in the Rattlesnake: a late-1970s subdivision boom of vegetation clearing, roads and utilities, and…
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