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Buffering impacts of climate change through restoration: Healthy forests, streams, wetlands, and grasslands are invaluable buffers from the impacts of climate change. Plus, these ecosystems store carbon in the watershed, helping to offset our greenhouse gas emissions. One way to ensure we protect these critical ecosystems is to continue our shift from extractive resource industries to the industry of restoration. The Clark Fork watershed is well on its way to modeling just how this "restoration economy" will work: with over $600 million of Superfund cleanup and restoration monies flowing into the upper Clark Fork between Butte and Milltown, repaired, thriving ecosystems are primed to engines for economic growth. |
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The Future of Forest Management: The boon of our "restoration economy" extends to our national forests, too. In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service sent $4.7 million to Montana and Idaho to treat decaying forest roads through the Legacy Roads Initiative, one-third of which will funnel to forests in the Clark Fork basin. The road remediation projects will improve water quality and wildlife habitat, and create roughly 65 jobs in Montana.
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Adapting and Preserving Agricultural Lands: Not only is agriculture the largest industry in Montana, our basin's farms and ranches also act as protective barriers from climate change-- many types of crops can soak up carbon from the atmosphere. But wide-open agricultural lands are dwindling in the Clark Fork basin. Take Ravalli County: over the last two decades, agricultural lands have decreased by 18% or 50,000 acres. If development continues at its current rate, the Bitterroot Valley could lose another 40,000 acres of farmland by 2025. |
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Restoration
