Northwest Connections has been working since 1997 to help identify and conserve Plum Creek lands in the Swan Valley. When Plum Creek, a timber company organized as a Real Estate Investment Trust, began selling land for development in the Swan Valley, they owned a total of approximately 80,000 acres. Because Plum Creek lands were originally railroad land grants, they are arranged in a checkerboard pattern such that every other square mile of the Swan Valley alternates between public and private ownership.

In 2005 all of the conservation partners in the Swan Valley agreed that while incremental progress was being made, Plum Creek's divestment of land was outstripping the available resources. By that time, 9,000 acres of former timber company land had been purchased and conveyed to the Flathead National Forest, 7,200 acres had been placed under conservation easement, and 4,000 acres had been sold to private individuals.

In 2007, The Nature Conservancy and The Trust For Public Land entered into an agreement with Plum Creek Timber Co. to purchase all of the remaining lands in the Swan Valley (67,000 acres). The Swan lands are just a subset of the Montana Legacy Project which encompasses 310,000 acres across western Montana.

- click on map to enlarge view (PDF, 2MBs) -

Plum Creek lands in the Swan Valley will largely be conveyed to adjoining land owners with the southern portion of the checkerboard lands going to the Flathead National Forest, and the northern portion going to the Swan River State Forest. 

Roughly 2,500 acres adjoining private land owners will be determined by a community process and has a good chance of ending up as some form of community owned forest.

Northwest Connections is actively engaged with the Montana Legacy Project and will be working with present and future owners to maximize ecological and community benefits as we 'erase' the legacy of the checkerboard land ownership pattern.

A new book, Saving the Wide Open Spaces: The Conservation of Biodiversity and Working Landscapes, to be published in 2010, discusses the increasing threat of land fragmentation across the West and highlights new strategies for maintaining the ecological, economic and social values of working landscapes. Melanie Parker from Northwest Connections is the author of one chapter which centers on the conservation of Plum Creek lands in the Swan Valley.

Swan Valley Factsheet - May 2010 (PDF)

Ensuring A Timberland Legacy
By JANE BRAXTON LITTLE, American Forests, Winter 2009 (PDF)

Plum Creek conservation deal biggest in U.S.
by MICHAEL JAMISON, Missoulian, June 30, 2008