RIVER TO LAKE INITIATIVE

Flathead Land Trust and local partners identified the River to Lake Project area as a landscape with high biological value and seriously threatened natural resources. From this assessment, we began work on the River to Lake Initiative, which encompasses a project area including the main stem of Flathead River (from the junction of the North, Middle and South Forks) to the North Shore of Flathead Lake. View Project Area Map                       
Within the Crown of the Continent ecosystem and the northern Rockies landscape, the Flathead River and Lake provide habitat for threatened native fish, high diversity of avian species, and incredible array of terrestrial species.  Flathead Lake is known as one of the cleanest lakes of its size in the world and contributes an estimated $10 billion in the local economy. The river and its associated wetlands have been identified as critical habitat by the Flathead Lakers Critical

Lands project, the Nature Conservancy’s Northern Rockies Ecoregional plan, and the International Joint Venture Program as an “Important Bird Area.”

The primary goal of the River to Lake Initiative is to protect large parcels of critical habitat, including wetlands, riparian areas and adjacent farmland within the river corridor and the northshore of Flathead Lake.  The focus of this project is to bring agencies and organizations together to provide incentives and options for private landowners to conserve critical habitat. We are actively working with a number of landowners interested in protecting their property through voluntary conservation easements and other means.  In August of 2008, for example, Flathead Land Trust signed a purchase agreement with a landowner on the North Shore of Flathead Lake, ensuring the protection of 160 acres adjacent to the Flathead Waterfowl Production Area.  We facilitated the sale of the land to Montana Dept. Fish, Wildlife & Parks, who established a Wildlife Management Area there, with plans for a small state park on a portion of the acreage. 

We continue to work on other projects that focus on protection through conservation easement donations and purchase of development rights through North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) funding, USDA Farm and Ranch Protection Program, Bonneville Power mitigation program, and DNRC Land Banking program. 

In March of 2009, FLT and our partners were awarded a $1 million dollar grant through NAWCA, which funded the easement purchase on Church Slough later that year.   This is the second phase of the grant. The first phase was awarded in 2004 and went toward the protection of Weaver Slough. 

Read River 2 Lake News for the latest project developments under the River to Lake Initiative.