Voices of the Land - Swan Valley

Community forest: Valley residents consider variey of approaches to preserve open spaces

Written by PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian¨

CONDON - A towering ponderosa pine marked with faded blue paint stands just off the edge of Bud Moore's Coyote Forest.

Look closer and see the claw marks of grizzlies scratched deep into its bark.

A few years back, this meeting place of grizzly bears traveling through the Swan Valley was slated for the sawmill. Plum Creek's timber cruisers came through and blasted its bark with bright blue paint.

But that was before Moore's late wife, Janet, had her say.

On this day, the 88-year-old Moore leans forward on his well-worn walking staff, a smile on his face as he remembers the scene.

There was Janet passionately explaining why the bear tree needed saving. And then the unexpected decision by a hardened logger - who suddenly stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the tree.

“Janet thinks there's power in that tree. I think there's power in that tree, too,” Moore remembers hearing the logger say.

They tied a yellow ribbon around the pine and decided to let the next generation of grizzly bears scratch off the blue paint on its bark.

“They estimated that there was about 4,000 board feet in that tree alone,” said Moore. “It would have been a really valuable piece of timber.”

In the Swan Valley, the differences between tree huggers and loggers have blurred, replaced by a community willing to work together to protect the virtues that brought them all there.

Ann Dahl can remember a different time.

“In the 1980s, things around here were pretty contentious,” said Dahl. “Every issue was polarized. At most community meetings, people would shout out their viewpoints over and over again.”

The 1970s had seen an increase in timber harvest in the area. By the early '80s, environmentalists were starting to shut down sales on public lands.

“There was plenty of blame being cast about,” she said. “There were also a few who decided that people in this community could do more by working together.”

In 1990, the Swan Citizens Ad Hoc Committee formed to focus on a variety of environmental issues facing the valley. It took time, but people started to talk with each other. They discovered they agreed on more than they ever would have guessed.

They started working together, finding consensus on a controversial land exchange, raising money to help keep wilderness rangers in the Mission Mountains, and even coming up with a plan to keep the U.S. Forest Service office in Condon open after the agency said it would close because of funding shortfalls.

Dahl now heads the Swan Ecosystem Center based at the Condon Forest Service office. The center serves as a liaison between the community and the Forest Service - although these days its largest challenge is addressing Plum Creek's decision to begin selling off its land holdings in western Montana.

In the Swan Valley, the timber company's holdings are mostly in a checkerboard pattern scattered among Forest Service and private land. Plum Creek's 37,731 acres are nearly twice as much as all other private lands in the 238,284-acre Swan Valley planning region.

Of course, that could change if the industrial timberlands are purchased by people who want to subdivide the property.

Dahl, who also serves on Missoula County's Open Lands Working Group, said the Swan Valley community is both worried about its future and focused on getting something done.

“Luckily, we've started working together as a community. If we were to learn that Plum Creek was selling its land and still arguing with each other, we wouldn't be ready to act,” she said.

The community has already supported a land exchange between the Forest Service and Plum Creek that preserved about 4 1/2 sections of land around Lindbergh Lake. It also supported the development of four grizzly bear linkage zones that could help guide future development to protect the bruins.

Private landowners stepped up to donate conservation easements on more than 4,000 acres that will protect those areas from subdivision and other development.

“That's remarkable when you consider that more than 20 people have given up their rights to subdivide because of the attributes of this place,” Dahl said.

Still, if Plum Creek opts to sell its lands to private developers, the entire dynamic of the valley could change.

“The prices for that land are so high that the people who buy them don't need to work,” said Dahl. “Nobody here, working a job, can afford it.”

The average price for the land can run as high as $10,000 an acre and that's without power or sewer, she said.

“Plum Creek is able to control the prices,” she said. “They're smart enough not to put it all on the market at once. This valley could end up looking a lot like the Bitterroot if we don't get a handle on Plum Creek's land sales soon.”

The community is working with Plum Creek and others about the potential of purchasing 2 1/2 sections that would become a community forest.

“Plum Creek has always been willing to work with us as long as we can come up with the money they request,” she said. “We've hired a fundraiser to help us raise the money.”

Dahl said she was once a die-hard tree hugger who advocated no logging, but that's all changed.

“It's not the logging that's going to change everything,” she said. “It's the residential development that never goes away.”

Dan Stone - a 20-year resident of the Seeley-Swan area - also represents the Swan Planning Region on the county's Open Lands Working Group.

He's worked at the lumber mill in Seeley Lake and watched that industry struggle. Nowadays, a different kind of person is moving into the valley.

“There's less logging and that part of our community is shrinking,” said Stone. “The economy is now based more on real estate and recreation.”

With that, Stone figures growth isn't far behind.

“The baby boomers are just getting ready to retire and they have a lot of money,” he said. “This is a nice place to live. More and more of them are going to move here or build second homes. I think this area is really going to go.”

Stone hopes the community is willing to work together to help guide that growth.

“People who care about growth can help shape it,” he said. “I don't think anyone can stop it, but we can shape it.”

One way to do that is through zoning. Stone knows that many Montanans consider that a four-letter word.

“In Montana, people see zoning like a communist plot,” said Stone. “I think that's starting to change. In Powell County, people have used zoning to keep big chunks of the county rural and that's a real conservative county.”

Back East, zoning is used to protect the little guy from big developers, said Stone.

“I'm just hoping that people might start talking about it,” he said. “I really think it might be one tool that we could consider using.”

Back up on the Coyote Forest, Moore is talking about his recent decision to put a conservation easement on the 80 acres he owns. He worked with a group dedicated to protecting important grizzly habitat called Vital Ground to put together a deal that included some cash for the easement.

“I wasn't in a position to give it away,” Moore said. “If there was more money out there, it would give little people like me a chance to protect the ecology of the place we own.”

Moore, a retired Forest Service employee and well-known mountain man, takes his responsibility to the land seriously. He's in the process of developing a plan that will guide management of the property for years to come.

On this day, he's wandering around the property “eco-cruising.”

“Everyone has heard of timber cruising, but I don't want my property managed just for its timber,” he said. “Most of the people who have put easements on their property in the Swan Valley did so because they were scared of logging. Logging has been damned rough on some places, especially that early logging.”

“I'm hoping to be able to show people that logging doesn't necessarily have to be all bad,” he said. “I hope that we don't lose all the logging in the valley.”

And so Moore eco-cruises to search out areas on his property that would benefit from a little logging. The trees he harvests go through the small mill set up just down the road from his log cabin.

He's looking for something elusive called sustainable logging.

“So much of past timber management has been based on the individual resource. I call it the Safeway store concept. It's all on the shelf. You just go and get out the logs and don't pay attention to what it does to everything else.”

“A typical timber sale contains mitigation language,” he said. “They'll admit that they'll do some damage to other resources getting out the logs and address how they'll mitigate for it.

“Our policy is simple. We do no harm. We don't do it the old way. We took mitigation out of the equation. We want improvement on the whole entire place.”

Moore believes that if logging is done carefully, it can improve on what nature has to offer. And he hopes that people will continue making the trip to see what he's been able to accomplish over these last 32 years in Coyote Forest.

“I know that this is just a speck, but you can demonstrate on a speck,” said Moore. “I think we're making a difference here in this valley in a lot of different ways.”

“We're setting the stage for the next five or 10 years, and the things we're able to accomplish will mean a lot for the Swan Valley for years to come,” said Moore. “The Swan Valley is a special place for a lot of folks and there are a lot of people working hard to ensure it stays that way.”

About this series

The Missoula County commissioners are taking a hard look at the issue of open space throughout the county.

To do that, they've contracted with Five Valleys Land Trust, which in turn has created an Open Space Working Group. That group is made up of representatives from each of the nine different planning regions that make up Missoula County.

Over the next few months, the Missoulian will take you to each of those regions. We'll talk with the men and women serving on the Open Space Working Group and explore the variety of issues facing residents in each of the different regions.

The stories will appear every second week in Monday's Hometowns section.

Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 523-5259 or at pbackus@missoulian.com.

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