Your comments convinced DNRC to save this hemlock forest in Krause Basin. We need to hold DNRC to its new promise that it won't log hemlock forests south of Krause Basin either!
DNRC's is proposing more logging and thinning within, north, and south of the Bigfork Nordic ski trails in its Foothills North Project.
Please email DNRC's Mark Slaten ( mark.slaten@mt.gov ) by July 3 and consider making the following points:
1. We are pleased to see that DNRC has brought forward a number of the issues raised by the public in comments on the 2023 Foothills Restoration Project - and has proposed measures to address them.
2. We appreciate that DNRC intends to not thin or log “stands that are majority western hemlock.” We are disappointed, however, that “mitigations to restore or maintain old growth” could be applied in such hemlock stands. This is too often a euphemism for thinning in old growth, so we ask that you simply leave all mature forests alone.
3. We appreciate and hope you take seriously your commitment to “ensure that harvest activities do not create new opportunities for illegal motorized access.”
4. While we appreciate your proposed three stages of weed treatments, the establishment and proliferation of weeds is best avoided by absolutely minimizing the amount of land disturbed by logging and road building equipment and by enforcing against motorized use of already existing roads.
5. We appreciate your efforts to minimize conflicts between logging activities and the very popular Bigfork Nordic ski trails.
Click here to read or download DNRC's Foothills North Project proposal.
Click here to read Swan View's 6/9/25 comment letter, which documents lots of reasons not to log or thin mature forests and includes photos of the kinds of damage that such logging, road building and ensuing ATV abuse entails.
Click here to read Swan View's 6/23/25 comment letter outlining Administrative Rules of Montana requirements that DNRC “retain . . . rare or unique habitat elements” like hemlock forests and limit its management activities to a “maximum management period of four years, followed by a mandatory rest period of at least eight years” to protect the continued use of habitat by grizzly bears and other wildlife.
Your comments are due July 3. Best send them today so you can't forget!
Thank you for taking a few minutes to let DNRC know you want hemlock and other mature forests left unscathed along the Swan Range foothills!
