Montana SAF Members Celebrate Community Forest


On July 8, the Libby Chapter of the Montana SAF joined community members and collaborating partners gathered in Troy, Montana, to celebrate the founding of Alvord Lake Community Forest. The 142-acre forest is the result of more than a decade of efforts to protect the lake's scenic shoreline from real estate development.

After partnering with local group Friends of Alvord Lake and many other contributors, the Vital Ground Foundation purchased the parcel thanks to a generous grant from the U.S. Forest Service's Community Forest Program. Volunteers from the SAF chapter in nearby Libby inventoried the parcel and wrote a forest management plan. The forest hit every criteria - wildlife habitat, community support, education. The program requires that a local or tribal government, or a qualified land trust, manage the intended land, and that applicants prove local support of the project by securing at least half of its funding from non-federal sources.

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