2,000 Montanans gathered at the State Capitol for the Rally for Public Lands (photo by Eliza Wiley)
In a striking show of support for Montana’s 30 million acres of national public lands, some 2,000 people packed the State Capitol Rotunda on Friday to celebrate the outdoor way of life that defines our state.
Speakers, including Governor Steve Bullock and Senater Jon Tester, helped the crowd make it clear that Montanans will not tolerate or allow special interests to seize and exploit public lands for private gain.
Hiking in the Terry Badlands Wilderness Study Area (photo by Kelly Wicks)
We’re happy and relieved to announce that Daines' and Gianforte's anti-wilderness study area bills are now dead.
Rainbow near the Big Hole River, now threatened with oil and gas development in spite of overwhelming opposition (photo by Bob Ambrose)
Secretary Zinke could hardly have been further from the Teddy Roosevelt conservationist he proclaimed to be.
Fall along the Big Hole River, now threatened by oil and gas development under Zinke (photo by Scott Wheeler)
Zinke has surrounded himself with proponents of lands transfer, hiring more than ten people who used to work for some of the biggest and most powerful lands transfer advocates in the country.
Stone Lake in the West Pioneers, one of the WSAs that would have been resolved by FJRA (photo by Sally Carlson)
One of the reasons FJRA didn’t eventually pass was because Steve Daines, first as congressman and later as senator, refused to support the bill.
Trailhead to Beehive Basin in the Spanish Peaks (photo by Sage Schiller)
During the same committee meeting in which the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act was inexplicably left off the agenda, Sen. Daines voted in support of five bills in five other states that would designate, in total, 1.3 million acres of new Wilderness.
