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		The Nature Conservancy in Montana Montana About the Chapter Chapter News Places We Protect Montana State Tax Credit Events Science & Stewardship Grizzly Bears Press Releases Contact Us Pine Butte Guest Ranch Ways of Giving Conservation Buyers

Places We Protect in Montana

The Centennial Valley ©Jim Steinberg

The Nature Conservancy is the world's leading private conservation group. Since 1979, the Conservancy has worked with landowners to conserve almost half a million acres of land in Montana.

The Conservancy has community-based programs within three broad ecosystems. These include:

• the Crown of the Continent, a 10-million-acre region that includes the Blackfoot and Swan Valleys, the Rocky Mountain Front and parts of southern Alberta and British Columbia
• the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem/southwestern Montana, including the Centennial, Madison and Big Hole Valleys
• the Northern Prairies program centered in southern Phillips County, perhaps the largest, most significant native grassland remaining in the Northern Great Plains

In these regions, we work collaboratively with landowners and many partners to achieve conservation that is compatible with local  economies. We also own several preserves across Montana that have unique natural features. 

Preserve - Centennial Sandhills
The Conservancy announces a new preserve in southwest Montana: the 1,400-acre Cetennial Sandhills Preserve.

Crown of the Continent
This region -- encompassing national parks, wilderness areas and vast privately-owned ranchlands -- is home to some of the most intact wildland on the continent, where predator-prey relationships are still functioning.

The Blackfoot
Once a threatened native trout fishery, the Blackfoot River watershed has become a national model for conservation.

The Rocky Mountain Front
The Rocky Mountain Front is a convergence of mountains and plains that stretches in a 50-mile swath for over 300 linear miles of Alberta and Montana.

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
This 27 million-acre ecosystem encompasses America's oldest and perhaps most well known national treasure, Yellowstone National Park, whose biological integrity depends on the much larger complex of federal, state and private lands surrounding it.

The Centennial Valley
The Centennial Valley is a remote ranching valley in southwestern Montana and one of the most important corridors for wildlife migrations from Yellowstone to the northern Rockies.

The Centennial: A quiet treasure
The Centennial: A quiet valley teaming with wildlife once was the public's link to Yellowstone Park.

Big Hole Valley
The Big Hole Valley is the highest and widest mountain valley of southwestern Montana. Through it flows the Big Hole River, a world-renowned fishery and one of the few free-flowing rivers left in the West.

The Yellowstone River
The Yellowstone River remains one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the lower 48 states. This unique river is the focus of one of the Conservancy's community-based programs in Billings, Montana.

Northern Montana Prairies
One-half of Eastern Montana holds perhaps the largest and most significant native grassland communities remaining in the Northern Great Plains.

The Matador Ranch
On the Matador Ranch on the northeastern plains of Montana, ranchers are working with the Conservancy on a new concept that involves the exchange of forage for conservation practices. It's called grassbanking.

Preserve - Comertown Pothole Prairie
In the far northeastern corner of Montana, there is a rolling landscape of native grasses and shallow “pothole” lakes that was formed over 10,000 years ago by the great continental glaciers.

Preserve - Pine Butte Swamp
The Nature Conservancy continues an ambitious project to protect Montana's Pine Butte Swamp: the largest wetland complex along the Rocky Mountain Front and the grizzly bear's last stronghold on the plains.

Preserve - Crown Butte
Crown Butte rises 900 feet above the foothill prairies just east of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. Fortified by tall columns of igneous rock and never cultivated or heavily grazed, the butte serves as an outstanding example of undisturbed native grassland.

Preserve - South Fork Madison
Located about five miles west of West Yellowstone, the South Fork Madison Preserve is an important wetland habitat which supports outstanding populations of fish, waterfowl and fur bearers.

Preserve - Dancing Prairie
Located in northwestern Montana, is Dancing Prairie is home to one of the last remaining populations of the endangered herb, Spalding's catchfly.

Preserve - Swan River Oxbow
Between the Swan Range to the east, and the Mission Mountains to the west, the Swan River flows through a beautiful valley. In 1986 The Nature Conservancy purchased 392 acres of this valley, creating the Swan River Oxbow Preserve.

Preserve - Lindbergh Lake Pines
Lindbergh Lake Pines is a 40-acre preserve of venerable old-growh ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir and western larch.