Mission & Key Programs
Mission: The Montana Land Reliance (MLR) partners with private landowners to permanently protect agricultural lands, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
Vision: The lasting benefits of MLR’s work are the perpetuation of a lifestyle and an economy that rely on responsibly managed private land and increasingly valuable Montana open spaces that will continue to nourish the spirit of future generations.
The Montana Land Reliance is solely focused on helping landowners protect their property through perpetual conservation easements. Since our inception in 1978, we have partnered with over 1,000 families to permanently protect 2,000 miles of streambank and nearly 1.4 million acres of Montana’s working landscapes. We remain committed to maintaining relationships with easement-holding landowners through annual monitoring visits as well as building new connections with families who are interested in protecting Montana’s open spaces.
service area
Statewide in Montana
unique in the transboundary rocky mountains
The statewide focus of The Montana Land Reliance enables our team to apply our efforts in the places that need it the most. As one of the few land trusts that covers the entire state, we have the flexibility to answer the call from conservation-minded landowners no matter where they are. Over the last four decades, this approach has resulted in the protection of whole agricultural neighborhoods and conservation corridors in critical areas.
Project Highlight
In 2024, five siblings from the Berg family partnered with MLR to complete a conservation easement on their 2,000-acre property on the northeast flank of the Bridger Range. This remarkable project was started in 2006 by their father, who sadly passed away before seeing his vision become reality. The property had been in the family since the early 1930’s, originally used as a place to summer and shear sheep.
Now with kids and grandkids of their own, the five siblings appreciate the uniqueness of the property and the importance of protecting it for future generations. Twenty years after their father began the process, the siblings revived it, honoring his wishes by permanently protecting the wet creek bottoms, timbered slopes, and grassy hillsides that make the place so special. Also protected are the elk, moose, mule deer, and black bear that call the ranch home. This project represents all the things MLR values as an organization: open space, water resources, wildlife, and Montana’s agricultural heritage.
https://mtlandreliance.org/success-stories/the-bergs-sixteen/
