Migrating elk, pronghorn and deer often travel through private lands. But increasing development near national parks in Wyoming is disrupting these routes.
The Jackson Hole Land Trust was recently awarded $21.25 million in federal funding to protect lands that are critical to wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE).
The funding comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
Max Ludington, president of the Jackson Hole Land Trust, said conservation easements have become a popular tool with Wyoming landowners. He said the demand for conservation easements has been outpacing funding.
“That really was the impetus to put this application together was to try to increase the pool of funds available, to make this tool more broadly accessible particularly for northwestern Wyoming landowners,” he said.
The land trust has seen growing interest in conservation easements in Park County, where the nonprofit has a regional program called Park County Open Lands.
Conservation easements are voluntary agreements where landowners can limit future development, but also retain the right to sell the land in the future.
Ludington said the scope of the funding could cover projects from Park County as far as Lincoln County and counties in between.
“That may be for migrating wildlife that comes across those different private lands or lands where there's significant restoration happening, like the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative’s attempts to restore buffalo in the landscape, and it will really focus in on … where there's an attempt to maintain farming, ranching economies and people that are doing that in conjunction with maintaining wildlife habitat,” he said.
The land trust will leverage the federal funds with private, state and nonprofit dollars with the goal of conserving between 10,000 to 20,000 acres of private land over the next five years.
Those lands could include farms and ranches in Park County, buffalo habitat at the Wind River Indian Reservation and lands in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem that provide migration corridors and cultural resources.
The initiative is in partnership with Grand Teton National Park, Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust.
The InterTribal Buffalo Council also received $21 million in RCPP funding to restore native grassland ecosystems using bison on lands within 21-member tribal nations in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota. Trout Unlimited also received $14 million for restoration work in the Salt River watershed.
