Just inside the Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation Rodeo Park gate looking north. This is part of the greater BCCA and includes part of the motorized permit route.
The BCCA Council meets the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Ovando Fire Hall. The Council includes representatives from three public agencies (Forest Service, Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and Montana Dept. of Natural Resources & Conservation), Fish & Wildlife Service (as holder of the conservation easement on the Core), and eleven private landowners, recreational user groups, local businesses and/or commercial outfitters.
Ovando School students conducting forest monitoring and learning how to collect forest data using the "Rapid Forest Assessments" method. This photo was taken before forest restoration treatments for the Forest In Focus Project. The BCCA Council hopes to continue future monitoring with the school following the forest treatments to track vegetation response and continue to expose students to forest data collection.
Groups will volunteer on the BCCA for various projects. This student group helped pull weeds for the day.
There are two grazing leases on 4,600 acres of the BCCA. The grazing management plan was developed and implemented in 2009. The BCCA uses a four-pasture, rest-rotation grazing system. One pasture, of about 1,200 acres, gets rested every year and grazing seasons are staggered. The plan is integrated with an adjacent DNRC grazing lease, monitoring is conducted and annual lease meetings are held.
OVANDO - The Blackfoot Community Conservation Area (BCCA) is located in the mid-reaches of the Blackfoot watershed near Ovando Mountain. It combines community forest ownership and management within the Core 5,609 acres with cooperative ecosystem management for multiple-use across public and private lands for 41,000 acres in the Blackfoot Watershed.
Established in 2005, the community vision for the BCCA is to develop a working landscape that balances ecological diversity with local economic sustainability for the future benefit of the Blackfoot watershed community. This strategy of management and collaboration is one of the earliest examples of a community forest in the nation.
Plum Creek originally owned the Core. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Western Montana Land Steward and Council member Steve Kloetzel said that it was the most expensive Plum Creek land available at the time because of its high recreation value designated as "Highest and Best Use". It was appraised at $3,800/acre.
In 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) purchased a conservation easement to protect the Core's conservation values and perpetuate its value as a working landscape. The easement eliminated the development right on the land, cutting the value nearly in half when TNC purchased the land.
TNC sold the Core land to the Blackfoot Challenge in 2008. The Ovando community, donors from the greater Blackfoot Watershed and the Blackfoot Challenge raised $10 million for the land purchase and establishment of an endowment fund. While the Blackfoot Challenge owns the Core, they delegate the management to the 15-member BCCA Council (Council).
The Blackfoot Challenge Board of Directors appointed the first Council in July 2005. The Council includes representatives from three public agencies owning land adjacent to the Core (Forest Service, Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and Montana Dept. of Natural Resources), Fish & Wildlife Service (as holder of the conservation easement on the Core), and eleven private landowners, recreational user groups, local businesses and/or commercial outfitters. While the Council is entirely volunteer, there are two paid support staff, Land Steward Brad Weltzien and Coordinator Sara Schmidt, that are hired by the Blackfoot Challenge and work for the Council half time and quarter time respectively.
Management for the Core entails activities that seek to conserve, enhance and maintain a balance of wildlife habitat, wetlands, water, grasslands and timber resources with traditional uses including hunting, recreation, grazing and forestry. These shared values for the land are complimented through working cooperatively with surrounding agencies and private landowners under the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for cooperative management of the 41,000-acre BCCA.
Outside of the Core, agencies follow their specific management plans. However, Weltzien said that agencies and private landowners work "across fence lines," when possible. This involves sharing resources and expertise for various projects including weed spraying, stream restoration and road maintenance projects.
Members of the Council, Weltzien and/or members of the community propose projects to the Council. The Council assesses how the project fits into the mission and management directives as well as the budget and gives the approval to pursue the project.
"[The Council] doesn't prioritize one [value] over another," said Council Chair Ben Slaght. "We just see what we think at that time is the most important."
Council member Barb McNally said the most controversial topic for the Core in the past 10 years has been about motorized use. The Council spent two years holding community meetings about motorized use in the early stages of developing the Core Management Plan.
What was finally agreed upon was motorized access is limited to open, established roads except snowmobiles which are allowed Dec. 1 – May 1, except where signed closures exist. Some roads may be seasonally closed due to sensitive wildlife areas, road condition and to accommodate grazing leases. If resource damage occurs on soils, vegetation or wildlife from snowmobiles, the Council may require that snowmobilers stay on groomed or signed snowmobile routes.
"It's not perfect but compliance has been good," said Gordon.
Groups of up to 10 ATVs or five vehicles can apply for a free permit from July 1- Aug. 15 at the Blackfoot Challenge office in Ovando to use the BCCA Core. This includes roads that have an easement to cross Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) land and USFS land. The six-week access period was set during the summer because it is after elk calving season, before hunting, and typically the road conditions are dry.
"It's about finding a balance. That's why we have a 15-member Council that has different views and different objectives," said Gordon. "We spend a lot of time in meetings and discussions to find out what works best for everyone and the future of the Core."
Slaght added, "Nothing is set in stone. We can always be reevaluating and we can always change."
Weltzien said the flexibility to make split second decisions is a stark contrast to the longer process that other agencies and some community forests that have more rigid standard operating procedures are required to operate under.
"Having a broad [Core] management plan was really important to allow us [the Council] to be flexible and have it not tie us down," said Gordon. "If it were set in stone then there is no changing decisions as conditions change. As the community changes and the desires of the community change, it needs to be a fluid document."
Kloetzel said the biggest sideboard for the Core's management decisions is the USFWS conservation easement. This is what excludes structures and buildings from being built in the Core.
Funding sources for BCCA Core projects comes from timber and post/pole sales, grazing leases on 4,600 acres and annual enrollment payments for block management. The BCCA includes part of the 15,880 acre Ovando Mountain Block Management Unit #27, one of 69 block management areas in Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Region 2 in 2015. Projects are also subsidized with federal, state and local grants.
In 2015 there were several projects done in the Core. Projects included weed spraying in partnership with other agencies, pre-commercial thinning and forest restoration projects funded by the DNRC Forest in Focus grant. Many of these projects will continue into 2016 along with continued education outreach, including stream and forest monitoring by Ovando School students, hosting the Missoula Symphony Gran Fondo ride in September and potential research opportunities with a University of Montana graduate student.
"The concept of a community forest [for another area that may want to use the BCCA Core as a model] is not a bad thing," said Gordon. "It definitely needs to meet the needs of the community and be spawned from what [a good representation of] members of the community want. It can bring the community together."
"No two community forests are the same," added Kloetzel. "They range from 15 acres to 100,000 acres and some are managed by government agencies or the community. The key is it needs to be tailored to the community."
The Council meets the first Thursday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Ovando Fire Hall. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. For more information call the Blackfoot Challenge office at 406-793-3900 or visit http://www.blackfootchallenge.org and click on the Blackfoot Community Conservation Project under projects.
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