Mission

With the Blackfeet Nation and Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, we flew examining the Badger-Two Medicine, the traditional homeland of the Blackfeet, in the heart of the Crown of the Continent. Bounded by Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Reservation, with Wilderness to the west and south, it is the connective habitat between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex and the Blackfeet Reservation. The B2M also contains the headwaters of two drainages, Badger Creek and the South Fork of the Two Medicine River. And it is home range and a crucial habitat link for grizzly bears, wolverines, and westslope cutthroat trout. These two drainages water the Reservation and the northern plains of Montana.

The sacred Badger-Two Medicine encompasses 130,000 acres and was leased for oil and gas in the 1980s, but after pushback from our partners like the Blackfeet Nation, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, The Wilderness Society, Montana Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Alliance and many other dedicated groups, all of the leases except one have been canceled or voluntarily retired by lease-holders who recognized the total lack of Tribal consultation.

On September 9th, 2022, a federal judge reinstated the last remaining drilling lease in the Badger-Two Medicine - a lease that was canceled in 2016, and again deemed unlawful in a 2020 court case. Despite the two previous rulings, the judge stated the 6,200-acre parcel of National Forest land, just south of Glacier National Park, could be drilled. Thank you for continuing your work to fully protect the Badger-Two Medicine from oil and gas development.

The region is also threatened by illegal use of motorized vehicles. We flew over the Skyland Snowmobile area proposed expansion. The Blackfeet Nation and conservation groups are working to keep motorized vehicles from illegally entering the area.

 

Click for geo-referenced flight photos