Increase the scope and scale of BLM-investment in the blackfoot watershed through the implementation of shared ecological restoration and resiliency goals across nonfederal lands, nearly 642,000 acres

The Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management awarded a $500,002 cooperative agreement to The Blackfoot Challenge, a community-based non-profit organization, under the Threatened and Endangered Species (CFDA 15.246) federal grant program. The purpose of this 3-year project is to increase the scope and scale of ecological restoration and resilience efforts across the Blackfoot River watershed in Montana, which comprises a significant portion of the Missoula Blackfoot-Clark Fork National Focal Landscape targeted for investment of Inflation Reduction Act funds. Key services provided through this award include restoring riparian habitat, reducing human-caused grizzly bear mortality, and improving habitat connectivity to benefit sensitive wildlife species such as grizzly bears and bull trout. The Blackfoot Challenge will leverage its longstanding collaborative relationships and network of conservation and landowner partners to strategically implement this transformational restoration work on non-federal lands, creating disproportionate positive impacts on species recovery within the Blackfoot watershed.

The blackfoot watershed comprises the majority of the missoula blackfoot-clark fork national focal landscape selected for targeted investment of inflation reduction act funds, and 44 percent of the blackfoot watershed is in non-federal management. The blackfoot landscape and community resiliency program through the blackfoot challenge will leverage IRA funding and apply IT to non-federal lands in order to achieve transformational ecosystem restoration and resilience in the blackfoot watershed for the benefit of sensitive wildlife species and rural communities. The project capitalizes on the blackfoot challenge s longstanding collaborative achievements and robust network of conservation and landowner partners to invest this once-in-a generation opportunity in the areas of riparian restoration and wildlife conflict reduction. This project strategically targets areas where partners can have a disproportionate and positive impact on species recovery. Key conservation benefits from this proposal will include: reducing human-caused grizzly bear mortality by making habitat more usable for bears and other wildlife and increasing habitat connectivity. Other conservation outcomes include improving ecological conditions of riparian areas that provide concentrated critical habitat for nearly all sensitive species in the watershed. By focusing on grizzly bears and bull trout in this case, we are taking an umbrella species approach with ancillary benefits to a wide swath of species that depend on similar habitats in addition to improving the economic resiliency of rural livelihoods dependent on the same natural resources.