Idaho county supports habitat proposal

Blaine County is supporting efforts to obtain $36.5 million in federal funding to protect open space along the High Divide—an area of wildlife habitat between the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and Yellowstone National Park. Most of that area is public land, but, conservation organizations say, some is key private farm and ranch land in danger of development. The proposal seeks to protect about 20,500 acres of private land, including 2,000 acres in southern Blaine County, during fiscal year 2016. The money would come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, established by Congress in 1965 to acquire land and conservation easements using fees paid for offshore oil and gas drilling. The fund collects $900 million annually, though much is diverted to unrelated federal spending. The High Divide proposal is part of a larger one, called the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, that seeks to protect connecting land from southern Alberta and British Columbia to northwestern Wyoming.  The application for funding has been filed by the High Divide Conservation Collaborative, a cooperative effort among federal and state agencies, ranchers and about 30 conservation organizations...more