{"id":22049,"date":"2018-04-05T05:27:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T11:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=22049"},"modified":"2018-04-05T05:27:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T11:27:40","slug":"opinion-land-board-should-jump-at-easement-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/04\/opinion-land-board-should-jump-at-easement-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Land board should jump at easement opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Horse\"<\/a>

Justin Schaaf<\/p>

This is a portion of the land included in the proposed the Horse Creek Conservation Easement.<\/p><\/div>\n

On April 16, the Montana State Land Board is expected to vote on providing hunters permanent access to 20,000 acres in a part of Eastern Montana where access is needed most: Wibaux County.<\/p>\n

If approved by the land board, hunters will be able to hunt the Horse Creek Conservation Easement area through Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park\u2019s Block Management Program without ever worrying about losing their new cherished hunting spot.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Wibaux County accounted for less than 1 percent of Region 7\u2019s total 2.2 million acres enrolled in block management, with just 18,777 private acres open to public hunting. The Horse Creek easement would more than double the acreage accessible to hunters in Wibaux County.<\/p>\n

Corey Stapleton, Montana\u2019s secretary of state and one of three land board members who voted to delay the easement decision (even though it has overwhelming public support and unanimous FWP approval), advised the rest of the five-person land board in a March 2018 newsletter to \u201cget focused on macroscopic issues regarding natural resource development in Montana\u201d and to stop focusing on \u201cdinking around buying private working farms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Well, Mr. Stapleton, doubling public hunting opportunity on private lands in Wibaux County doesn\u2019t seem like a microscopic issue, not to mention the one-time payment to the landowners for perpetual access will be funded primarily by out-of-state hunting licenses. It\u2019s clear that sportsmen support this project and are willing to foot the bill.<\/p>\n

Another land board member who voted to delay the decision in an apparent effort to ultimately squash the easement is Matt Rosendale. Mr. Rosendale is our state auditor and is running for one of Montana\u2019s U.S. Senate seats.<\/p>\n

On his campaign website, Mr. Rosendale claims he will \u201csupport greater access to our public lands\u201d and that \u201cduring my service on Montana\u2019s land board, I\u2019ve shown that I will work to expand access to public lands for hunters, anglers and others who simply want to enjoy Montana\u2019s great outdoors. I\u2019ll do the same in the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Rosendale claims he has and will continue supporting access to public lands but at the same time seems unwilling to approve the Horse Creek easement.\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Rosendale\u2019s rhetoric is hard to square with his inaction on this opportunity to open 20,000 acres to the public.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for the State Land Board to stop kicking this can down the road. If you won\u2019t fight for public access in the far reaches of Eastern Montana where it\u2019s needed most, then where will you fight for it?<\/p>\n

Dr. Matthew Rinella lives in Miles City and is the Region 7 board member for the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.\u00a0Justin Schaaf lives in Fort Peck and is the Region 6 board member for the chapter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 16, the Montana State Land Board is expected to vote on providing hunters permanent access to 20,000 acres in a part of Eastern Montana where access is needed most: Wibaux County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":22052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[6882,6881,6883],"class_list":["post-22049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-horse-creek-conservation-easement","tag-montana-state-land-board","tag-wibaux-county","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22049"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22055,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22049\/revisions\/22055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}