State officials voted 4-1 to seal more than 53,000 acres of land in the Cabinet Mountains under the terms of a perpetual conservation easement during a Montana Land Board meeting Monday.

The Oct. 20 vote signaled the final hurdle in a years-long effort to transfer the development rights of more than 85,000 acres of forestland in Lincoln, Sanders and Flathead counties from Green Diamond Resource Company to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.  

In February 2025, the state agency finalized a deal to put 32,821 acres north of the Thompson chain of lakes under the Montana Great Outdoors Conservation Easement. With Monday’s vote, another 52,930 acres of prime timberland and wildlife habitat will be added to that project this winter, said Dillon Tabish, the regional communications manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. 

“To see it over the final hurdle and get approved by the Land Board was an emotional moment,” said Tabish, who tuned into the meeting remotely with other staff at the Kalispell-based office. “I think this was an historic moment for Montana.” 

While Green Diamond will retain primary ownership of the land, the terms of the agreement preclude the company, and any future owners, from intensively developing the property and mandate that the land remain open to the public for outdoor recreation.  

That’s a plus for many of the project’s supporters, including state Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka. In his testimony to the Land Board, Cuffe said he had seen many former forestlands in the area turn into residential neighborhoods or become otherwise fenced off from the public. 

“We don’t want that,” he said. “We don’t want to turn it into a rich man’s hunting paradise. We don’t want to turn it into a subdivision area.” 

The terms of the agreement transfer to any future landowners, creating what state officials have described as “de facto public lands.”  

everal commenters at the meeting also framed the project as a boon for Northwest Montana’s timber industry. In the project’s environmental assessment, state officials estimated that the conservation easement produces about 3 million board feet of timber each year, contributing about $12 million to the local economy. 

“That’s what we’re going to continue doing on the land,” said Jason Callahan, policy manager for Green Diamond. “We’re going to continue creating fiber for the mills and jobs in the woods and that’s going to go on as long as we own the land. What this does is lets us monetize the development rights and put that into fire resiliency and forest health work.” 

Opponents of the purchase focused on potential resources beneath the surface of the property. An analysis performed by the state as part of the project’s environmental assessment found that the property’s mineral development potential was negligible.  WRH Nevada Properties LLC, the company that owns the mineral rights on about half of the conservation easement, has long disputed that finding. 

Lloyd Parsons, a project manager for WRH Nevada, told the Land Board the conservation easement would have “a real effect” on the company’s ability to explore and extract any minerals on the property. WRH Nevada still has the right to explore and extract minerals under the terms of the easement, but Parsons said it was difficult to find companies willing to do that work on a conservation easement. 

Testimony from Parsons, the Montana Mining Association and Citizens for Balanced Use ultimately failed to sway the opinions of most officials on the Land Board. The purchase was approved in a 4-1 vote. 

Attorney General Austin Knudsen supplied the sole vote against the easement. Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras provided an affirmative proxy vote for Gov. Greg Gianforte, who is in South Korea on a trade trip.  

The conservation easement was appraised for a purchase price of $57.5 million, but Green Diamond is contributing an in-kind donation of $20 million. About $35.8 million is expected to come from the United States Forest Legacy Program and $1.7 million will be contributed from state funds.   

Reporter Hailey Smalley can be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].