The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem needs more than love—it needs conservation
My relationship with conservation came long before my relationship with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Growing up on the coast of Maine, conservation was weaved into my everyday existence. My parents introduced me to the splendor of open space, public lands, and wild rivers. Our family walks through the woods were often spent in the singular pursuit of learning animal tracks, but looking back, I see that my brother and I were actually learning to love the land, waters, and wildlife around us.
This love was all-encompassing for me—maybe too much so. For as long as I can remember, the woods behind our house were a place my family spent much of our time. We didn’t need trails to know where we were, the trees and landmarks were as familiar as road signs. When I was nine, the forest was set to be selectively logged for forest health reasons. On our next walk, I sat in my favorite tree and cried, overwhelmed by a sense of loss. This place would never be the same again.
The rugged peaks and bowls of the Tobacco Root Mountains make for a fun backyard playground. (Photo London Bernier)
These days, I recognize that logging can be a powerful management tool and that tears are not the best way to advocate for the places you love. Nevertheless, that experience was a formative one in shaping my commitment to preserving wild places and open landscapes.
My relationship with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem began just four years ago with a bucket list trip to Yellowstone National Park and, admittedly, my initial impression that there just weren’t enough trees out here. As a lifelong East Coaster, the West was a foreign ecosystem that, while strange, ultimately captivated my interests, both personal and professional.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, conservation, and I intersected in Montana’s Ruby Valley when I took a position as a Big Sky Watershed Corps member with the Ruby Valley Conservation District. Nestled in the heart of southwest Montana, the Ruby Valley is home to incredible mountains, rivers, wildlife, and people. The valley provides unparalleled views and access to the Tobacco Root, Ruby, Greenhorn, Snowcrest, Gravelly, Highland, and Pioneer Mountains. Weaving through generations-old family ranches are the Ruby River and its tributaries, blue-ribbon trout streams home to some of the last remaining Arctic Grayling and Westslope Cutthroat populations in the area. You’ll find moose, pronghorn, white-tail and mule deer, elk, black and grizzly bears, and sandhill cranes inhabiting the patchwork of private and public lands. The folks who call the Ruby Valley home care about this landscape deeply. They work together to preserve the public land, working ranches, recreation opportunities, and wildlife habitat for future generations to enjoy.
Cows foraging as far as the eye can see with the Ruby Mountains rising on the east side of the Ruby Valley. (Photo London Bernier)
After moving to Sheridan, population of 694, to start my new position, I was immediately struck with the love and commitment everyone who lives here has for this special valley. It seemed every person I met not only loved the place, but was actively working to protect it. Community members, business owners, and ranchers alike were members of not just one, but several collaborative working groups and conservation-focused coalitions working to advocate for the landscape. Retired teachers and fishing guides volunteered their time to collect water quality data and educate young Ruby Valley community members year after year. Ranchers were committed to maintaining their working ranches not only to preserve their livelihoods and heritage, but also for the good of the wildlife that need open landscapes to support their movement and migration. While conservation might have looked different to each individual I met, they all shared a common goal: protect the place we love.
This spirit of organizing for a common goal is embodied by the Ruby Valley Strategic Alliance. This group is made up of conservationists, ranchers, businesspeople, and community members who know preserving working ranches is key to reaching conservation goals. In joining this group, I learned that the connection between agriculture and conservation is deeper than I could have imagined. An unlikely partnership in the minds of many, the Ruby Valley Strategic Alliance is one of the valley’s most powerful conservation tools.
One of the greatest threats places like the Ruby Valley face today is that the lands they hold are becoming more monetarily valuable as developments than open landscapes. As more people move to the area in search of their own slice of the good life, agricultural land and the open space it preserves is being lost to subdivisions and sprawl. But what is the cost of losing priceless open space, wildlife habitat, and recreation opportunities?
The Ruby Valley and surrounding mountains are key migration and movement corridors for grizzly bears, elk, and other wildlife traveling to and from Yellowstone National Park. The rivers and streams that flow through this landscape are an essential resource for irrigation, agriculture, wildlife, recreation, and more. By developing areas surrounding Yellowstone, we are fragmenting the landscape, making it difficult for wildlife to complete their daily movements and seasonal migrations needed to find food and suitable winter habitat, and risking the clean, cold water we all depend on. The issues faced in the Ruby Valley are representative of the challenges we are seeing in many places throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
London scrambling around in the Tobacco Root Mountains that flank the east side of Montana's Ruby Valley. (Photo London Bernier)
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the last nearly intact temperate ecosystems on earth. If ‘last intact temperate ecosystem’ doesn’t resonate with you, imagine this: over 22 million acres of sprawling forests, windswept sagebrush plains, abundant wetlands, harsh alpine tundra, erupting geysers, and an endless landscape largely undeveloped by humans that supports bison, elk, wolves, grizzly, pronghorn, trout, wolverine, and many other iconic Yellowstone species. Although the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the most beloved landscapes of North America, if not the world, this ecosystem needs more than love. It needs conservation.
While I could still do with a few more trees around here, I've grown to love the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for its diversity of landscapes, wildlife, and people. I am grateful my conservation journey continues as part of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition team. The best part? In my new capacity as communications associate with GYC, I still get to be a member of the Ruby Valley Strategic Alliance. Now, I get to support their work by helping the ranchers, conservationists, businesspeople, and community members I call friends and colleagues share stories of this remarkable landscape and of the good, hard work happening to keep the Ruby wild, open, and full of wildlife for generations to come.
If you want to stay in the loop about GYC’s work in the Ruby Valley and across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, sign up to be on our email list–you’ll be notified of opportunities to act and make your voice heard on issues you care about.
—London Bernier, Communications Associate
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the land of 49+ Indigenous Tribes who maintain current and ancestral connections to the lands, waters, wildlife, plants, and more.
