This past June some 300 people attended the Montana Governor’s Restoration Forum in Billings, Montana. Co-sponsored by Wildlands CPR, the forum brought together a diverse group including conservation, public land agency, labor, business, scientific, tribal, and community leaders, all for the purpose of exploring opportunities for build­ing a restoration economy in the state of Montana. Montana’s Governor Brian Schweitzer says that the state can be a national, if not world leader in creating a sustainable restoration economy that is good for Montana’s land, water and communities. Wildlands CPR also believes that Montana can be a model for comprehensive ecological restoration that heals our natural areas and brings good jobs to rural communi­ties.

What Do We Mean By Restoration?
Here in Montana we want to go beyond just ecological restoration. Storm Cunningham, one of the forum’s keynote speakers and author of a book entitled The Restoration Economy: The Greatest New Growth Frontier, speaks about a much broader revi­talization effort that needs to occur. The world, he writes, faces a trio of braided crises: one of constraint – a recognition that the world has finite resources; one of corrosion – the wearing down and out of our built environment and infrastructure; and one of contamination – the poisoning of the natural systems that provide us with life’s necessities: air, water, soil, and food. Storm asserts that the restoration economy should address urban, rural and ecological restoration needs under one umbrella, and he believes Montana is a great place to develop an integrated revitalization strategy for sustainable economic growth. Tying the biological, societal, and economic aspects of restora­tion together allows for an incredible diversity of res­toration approaches, participants, and opportunities. Wildlands CPR has joined the Revitalization Institute’s Partner Network. For more information go to www.revitalizationinstitute.com [1].

So, how do we create this restoration economy? There are several important considerations — includ­ing statewide coordination of restoration efforts, better branding of the concept of restoration, and developing guiding principles — but to build a strong, diverse and sustainable economy the first thing you need to do is invest. In preparation for the Gover­nor’s Forum, Wildlands CPR commissioned a report on funding sources for restoration work. Breeann Johnson, an intern for Wildlands CPR, researched and wrote Opportunities for Investing in Restoration Work in Montana. Marnie presented this report at the Restoration Forum during a break-out session entitled, “Building Local Business through Restoration.” What follows is an overview of the report. The full report is at http://www.wildlandscpr.org/funding-sources-road-decommissioning-project... [2]. For further details about the Governor’s Restoration Forum, to view Wildlands CPR’s power-point presentation, and to read a summary of all of the breakout sessions held during the forum, visit the forum’s homepage at www.restora­tionforum.mt.gov.

How Do We Fund Ecological Restoration?
While this report focuses on ecological restoration, the fund­ing opportunities we discuss could be utilized for a comprehensive revitalization approach. We highlighted three key areas of potential funding and funding models: the initiative and referendum process, restoration funding in other western states, and funding sources and resources readily available.

The “I & R” Process
Montana is one of 24 states in the U.S. that has an initiative and referendum process. California has long used the I & R process to garner funds for various purposes, but the state has been particular­ly successful in using the I & R process to generate funds for ecologi­cal restoration. Two significant ballot initiatives were Proposition 40 and Proposition 50 that passed during the 2002 elections. Proposi­tion 40 leveraged $2.6 billion in bonds, part of which was allocated for the protection of waterways and coastal areas and the preserva­tion of open space. Proposition 50 leveraged $3.44 billion in bonds to fund a variety of water projects, many of them aimed at waterway protection, preservation, improvement, and conservation.

Utilizing the I & R process shows promise for several rea­sons. For one, the I & R process offers citizens the opportunity to participate in direct democracy by supporting and organiz­ing ballot drives and by voting in or turning down initiatives. Another benefit of the process is the ability to educate the voting public about an issue; this can be beneficial even if the ballot drive is unsuccessful because it can raise awareness of an issue that previously did not have broad recognition. There can be drawbacks to the I & R process, such as special interest involvement or low voter turnout and these factors need to be weighed when considering a ballot drive. However, the I & R process can be just one of many tools Montanans can use to garner funds for restoration work.

Examining Funding Models and Restoration Efforts in Other Western States
Montana and California are not the only western states taking steps toward more cohesive plans to restore lands and protect resources; many other western states have been work­ing in this same direction.

New Mexico has been active in the last several years in re­gard to forest restoration. The Community Forest Restoration Act, passed by Congress in 2000, provides cost-share grants to stakeholders for forest restoration on public lands in New Mexico. In 2003 the New Mexico state legislature passed the Watershed Restoration Act. This act did not allocate funds for restoration, but it did require that the state design a watershed restoration strategy. To that end the state has designed the Forest and Watershed Health Plan, implemented in 2005. New Mexico also recently released its Forest Restoration Principles document. These principles are designed to provide a “zone of agreement” for industry, conservation organizations, land management agencies, and scientists when developing forest restoration projects; the goal being to reduce the need for liti­gation and to provide common language for all involved.

Arizona has initiated similar forest restoration efforts. In July of 2004 the state released a document entitled Guiding Principles for a New Economy Based on Forest Restoration. This document includes what the state feels is necessary to sustain a viable restoration economy, such as tourism, recreation, other community and economic benefits, collaboration and inclusiveness, reasonable predictability and a reasonable level of risk for businesses, and prioritization of investments in local and regional Arizona-based forest products industries. While the Principles do not authorize the allocation of funds for res­toration projects, they do lay out a sort of road map for what shape and direction projects should take.

Both Washington and California use gas tax revenue in unique ways. In Washington State, HB 1698 helped reallocate funds generated from state gas taxes more equitably between motorized and non-motorized recreational uses. The new funding formula allocates more monies to trail maintenance and facilities that are accessed by non-motorized recreational users, proportionate to the amount of gas taxes paid by non-motorized recreational users. Explicitly this bill deals with fairness. Implicitly this bill supports forest and watershed protection because non-motorized uses of public lands typically do less ecological harm than do motorized uses. In California, the OHV Grant Program, funded mostly from fuel taxes calculated to have come from off-road vehicles, provides grants for restora­tion and rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes and recreation areas.

Each of the above states’ efforts are examples of ways Montana could go about pursuing cohesive restoration efforts and starting a restoration economy in the state. While Montana cannot leverage ballot initiatives near the size California can, California pro­vides many lessons in how initiatives can be crafted, pursued, and presented to the public. New Mexico and Arizona both offer examples of defining param­eters for restoration work and bringing a diversity of stakeholders to the table. Washington has a model for how existing funding methods can be reexamined to more appropriately benefit citizens and natural resources. Examining what we are doing in our own state and seeing what has worked for our western neighbors can help contribute to Montana’s success with its restoration efforts.

Other Funding Sources
For those currently pursuing restoration work in Montana or elsewhere, there are an ever-growing num­ber of resources available to them. Our report high­lighted some of the most readily available resources for funding and assistance. These sources include Wildlands CPR’s updated Funding Sources for Road De­commissioning Projects report, the Catalog for Federal Domestic assistance (http://12.46.245.173/cfda/cfda.html [3]), specific federal program websites like the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Canaan Valley Institute’s Funding Sources for Highlands Action Plan. For full details on these and other funding resources please see our full report at www.wildlandscpr.org/Restora­tion/PRresources.htm.

Just a Beginning
The key now is to build on the Restoration Forum’s momentum and move from word to deed. Some of those deeds include:

1. Compile a list of current restoration funding sources being used in the state and examine what other avenues the state could pursue for further fund­ing (e.g. legislative efforts, incentive programs)
2. Establish a set of statewide restoration prin­ciples that take into account Montana’s diversity of forestlands, grasslands, rivers, streams, fisheries, and wildlife.
3. Prioritize restoration needs across the state and provide agreed upon language that would help diverse constituencies work together on restoration projects.
4. Establish a governor’s restoration task force or advisory council that could help prioritize restoration projects and act as a clearinghouse of information on funding sources and other restora­tion-related resources such as technical assistance and training opportunities.
5. Initiate collaborative restoration and revitalization projects that provide family-wage, local jobs while restoring our natural and built environment.

With the support of the state’s governor, Montana seems poised to launch a comprehensive restoration economy that could go beyond other state-level efforts. Montana’s vision for a restoration economy combines ecological restoration and urban/rural revital­ization into one comprehensive program. This approach will bring together ranching and farming interests, urban and rural community interests, and grassland, watershed and forest interests. This vision is also powerful in that it coordinates workforce and labor issues with environmental issues, and combines both with university re­search and monitoring programs that can enable Montana to become the intellectual center for restoration and revitalization in the U.S. A Montana restoration economy probably won’t solve all of Montana’s ecological or economic concerns, but with such broad-based sup­port, the restoration vision deserves our attention and action.

While our funding report is in no way comprehensive, it is a good starting point and hopefully a catalyst for generating further ideas, much like the restoration forum itself. We welcome your com­ments and ideas on the report. Please contact Marnie Criley with these comments at 406.543.9551 or marnie@wildlandscprorg.

—Breeann Johnson is a graduate student at the University of Montana. An aspiring environmental lawyer, she is particularly concerned with the use of and access to water in the west, particularly in relation to tribal treaty obligations. Marnie Criley is the Restoration Program Coodinator for Wildlands CPR.