Billionaire-Funded Eco Group Quietly Taking Farmland Out of Production in Rural America
30th July 2022
The American Prairie (AP), a conservation project in Montana, has quietly scooped up more than 450,000 acres of land with the help of its billionaire donors and the federal government.
The little-known project aims to create the largest “fully functioning ecosystem” in the continental U.S. by stitching together about 3.2 million acres of private and public lands, according to the American Prairie Foundation, which founded the reserve more than 20 years ago. The group has recorded 34 transactions spanning roughly 453,188 acres of land throughout central Montana — much of which were once used for farming and grazing — since 2004 and continues to aggressively expand.
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Gov. Greg Gianforte and a series of state agency heads penned letters to BLM late last year urging the agency not to approve the request. Montana Department of Agriculture Director Christy Clark said the plan would remove “large chunks of land from production agriculture,” likely decrease agricultural production revenue and harm support industries in the area like machinery sales and ranch laborers.
“It’s just flatly illegal,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Fox News Digital in an interview. “This is federal land that is specifically — by the Taylor Grazing Act, by federal law — set aside for livestock grazing. Bison are not livestock, even under federal law.”