Building a restoration economy, one state at a time

There's a great blog posting today on New West about the emerging restoration economy.  The writer refers to a new report by Western Progress and Progressive States Network about the emerging restoration economy in the Rocky Mountain West.  A few months ago, we helped coordinate a panel about the economic benefits of road removal at Western Progress' "Pay Dirt" conference here in Missoula.  That conference was all about building a restoration economy and this report is a follow up to that conference.

But the blog posting is worth reading, too, because it has some great direct quotes from Montana's governor about his interest in restoration here in Montana.  It's nice to see high-level elected officials talking about how important, and reasonable, it is to invest in restoration on a large scale.  And Montana really is investing in restoration.  In 2007, the MT legislature appropriated $34 million new dollars for watershed restoration projects throughout the state. In addition, some of that funding went to create a new statewide office of restoration (housed in the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation), that will help prioritize restoration needs in the state.