Forest Service trade could protect Crazies from crazy Republicans

I-90, now just another American entitlement, stalks the Yellowstone River between Livingston in the west then abruptly abandons her just east of Billings and plunges southward into the Apsáalooke or Crow Nation. 

Despite being sacred to the Apsáalooke the federal government has twice proposed the Awaxaawapìa Pìa or Crazy Woman Mountains sometimes called the Crazies as a location for a national park but half the land and every alternate section was owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad or was otherwise privately held. 

In 2014 two national forests based in Montana, one named for the Swiss guy who helped convince President Thomas Jefferson to use an executive order to buy land from a country that didn’t even own it and one named for a war criminal were merged into a single administrative unit. Now, Mary Erickson is the Forest Supervisor for the Custer Gallatin National Forest based in Bozeman and today most of the public land in the Crazies is shared by the Custer Gallatin and Lewis and Clark National Forests but even tribal access has been blocked by the descendants of European settlers.

The Custer Gallatin National Forest released a Preliminary Environmental Assessment for the East Crazy Inspiration Divide Land Exchange Project on Wednesday morning, signaling a possible resolution to what has been a long-simmering dispute over public access to the region. The agreement would exchange 4,135 acres (10 parcels) of forest lands for 6,430 acres of private lands (11 parcels), owned by six private property owners in the Crazy Mountains and near the Inspiration Divide Trail in Big Sky. The land near Big Sky is sought by the Yellowstone Club, a private community of multi-millionaires. The agreement would exchange 4,135 acres (10 parcels) of forest lands for 6,430 acres of private lands (11 parcels), owned by six private property owners in the Crazy Mountains and near the Inspiration Divide Trail in Big Sky. Also as part of the deal, the landowners would fund construction of a new 22-mile trail into the Crazy Mountains on forest land. As a sideline to the proposal, the landowners are offering to permanently protect Crazy Peak, an important cultural and historic site for the Crow Tribe. The protection would include a conservation easement and access to tribal members for cultural practices. "It's time to move forward with this plan that will connect people to one of our state's greatest treasures — the sacred Crazy Mountains," said Shane Doyle, a Crow Tribal member, in a statement. [Forest Service seeks comments on Crazy Mountains land exchange proposal]

Republicans aren't just fearful of government overreach; they're frightened public lands will be remanded to the First Nations. So, one solution to making America the Beautiful again and solving national forest and grasslands management woes is moving the US Forest Service from the US Department of Agriculture into Interior where tribal nations could more easily assume additional responsibilities for stewardship on public land, returning the resources to apply cultural fire to their own holdings and rewilding the West.

ip photo.