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March 25, 2024

Montana outdoor writers call for public land protections

(BOZEMAN, Mont.) – Last week, the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund hosted a conversation with Montana outdoor writers to share stories about public lands in the West at Bozeman’s Steep Mountain Tea House.

“We are fortunate to live in Montana. It’s a place of unparalleled beauty, and it’s deserving of our advocacy,” said MCV Program Director Jocelyn Leroux. “We are grateful to all who came to show support for our public lands.”

Keith McCafferty, Kylie Mohr and Sam Lungren read excerpts of their work and shared their storytelling inspirations.

McCafferty is a novelist and journalist who lives in southwest Montana. He’s a contributing writer to Field & Stream and has written several novels including, “A Death in Eden” – set in the backdrop of the Smith River. Mohr, who calls Missoula home, is a freelance journalist and correspondent for High Country News. Lungren rounds out the outdoor writer group. Lungren is a Bozeman resident outdoor journalist and photographer whose work has been featured in publications such as Bugel, The Drake, Backcountry Journal, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Midcurrent and more.

Conversations focused on efforts to save the Smith River from a proposed underground copper mine and the recent and long awaited developments on the veto override of Senate Bill 442 from the 2023 legislative session. The legislation, supported by over 85 percent of the Montana Legislature, would allocate money from recreational marijuana sales to provide property tax relief for disabled veterans and surviving spouses, increase funding for addiction services through the HEART Fund, provide funding for maintenance of county roads and to conserve wildlife and public lands.

“It’s all based on truth, you know. There are two people who live on different sides of the river,” McCafferty said of his book “A Death in Eden.”

“The cool thing about conservation is … overall this is one of the few things people can agree on,” Mohr said. “In these Western states we all have heritage, background, tradition that hits on these subjects, and so it’s not actually as polarizing as we think.”

The group also spoke about the importance of Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) as part of the public lands fabric in Montana and the United States.

“It just wouldn’t be like that if there were wheeled vehicles or motors or anything going on in there besides just the wind and the trees,” Lungren spoke of a WSA he hunted elk in that is under threat from U.S. Senator Steve Daines’ Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act – a bill that would strip protections from three WSAs, opening them up for motorized use and extractive industries. These areas have been managed as Wilderness for decades and have become important areas for wildlife as well as hunting and fishing. “I’m a very strong advocate for strengthening our Wilderness Study Areas,” Lungren concluded.