Missoula, MT – Thanks to a large grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the Great Burn Conservation Alliance is pledging to spend over $1 million to restore native habitat in the Great Burn ecosystem by 2026.
The Great Burn ecosystem is a vast, remote landscape of wild public land in the northern Bitterroot Mountains along the Montana-Idaho state line. This region provides a critical wildlife corridor connecting the Crown of the Continent and Selkirk-Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems with central Idaho’s wildlands and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
“The Great Burn’s exceptional wildlife values are currently threatened by the spread of noxious weeds,” said Great Burn Conservation Alliance Co-Executive Director Hayley Newman. “Our project will identify and manage infestations in the region’s most remote areas to safeguard this important habitat.”
The Great Burn Restoration Project will restore native habitat through early detection and rapid response treatment of noxious weeds, combined with targeted outreach and education. The group plans to restore 3,300 acres of backcountry habitat by 2026.
“The Great Burn ecosystem is home to two native mountain goat herds and a legendary elk herd as well as lynx, fisher, wolverine and rare native trout,” said Co-Executive Director Skye Borden. “It is also a key landscape for the recolonization of grizzly bears into the Bitterroot Ecosystem Recovery Zone. So, a wide range of species stand to benefit from this project.”
Great Burn staff were notified last Thursday that the project was selected for an $854,000 award during NFWF’s inaugural America the Beautiful Challenge grant cycle. The America the Beautiful Challenge is a public-private grant program for locally led ecosystem restoration projects. The Great Burn Conservation Alliance plans to match this award with $240,000 of its own funding from state grants, private foundations and individual donors.
The majority of program expenses will go toward full-time employee and field crew salaries. The group plans to announce new job listings for the project in January 2023.
“We are proud to create good paying jobs for our local gateway communities,” said Co-Executive Director Newman. “We hope this work will also provide indirect benefits by improving wildlife populations and supporting the local wildlife-based recreational economy.”
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The Great Burn Conservation Alliance is a 501(c)(3) that works to foster the connection between people and place to further conservation and stewardship in the Great Burn ecosystem. The group is based in Missoula, MT, with field crews working out of the Lolo and Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests.