How Montanans are banding together to preserve an iconic American landscape

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• John Yang:

  In Montana, an unlikely group of allies is working together to preserve a unique prairie ecosystem and at the same time their work is helping their own rural economies

  Stan Parker of Montana PBS takes us to one of the planet's last remaining intact grasslands.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  In central Montana, family ranchers are stepping up to protect the grasslands and their rural way of life.

• Bill Milton, Rancher:

  This is one of the last really great intact grasslands left in the world.

• Alexis Bonogofsky, Sustainable Ranching Initiative:

  Grasslands provide habitat for hundreds of wildlife species that need this particular ecosystem to survive.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  For ranchers like the Nolans, grassland conservation is about survival.

• Laura Nolan, Rancher:

  What it comes down to is if we're not taking good care of the land, we're not going to be here anymore.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  On a hot day in August, Laura Nolan and her kids, Jack and Anna, are tearing out some old fences. They'll replace them with a different type that allows migrating animals to pass through safely.

• Laura Nolan:

  So the bottom wire is high enough for antelope to go under, and then the top wire is low enough for the deer and the elk to go over. And then there's a space between the first and second wires that the sage grouse can go through.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  The federal government is helping pay for this project. It's one example of a conservation trend that's been gaining steam in recent years. Major environmental nonprofits and government agencies are expanding financial incentives to help family ranchers protect this vast grassland ecosystem.

  With a population under 200, the small town of Winnett is playing an outsized role in this work, thanks in large part to a local group called ACES, or agricultural community enhancement and sustainability. Laura Nolan helped start the organization.

• Laura Nolan:

  In a nutshell, Aces is a group of people who care about Winnett specifically. But central Montana more broadly and rural communities even more broadly.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  The group makes conservation projects like this stream restoration possible by linking local ranchers with funding and sometimes volunteer labor. And the work comes with some unexpected alliances, says rancher Bill Milton.

• Bill Milton:

  20, 30 years ago, a group like the Nature Conservancy or World Wildlife Fund or Audubon, these are traditionally perceived by ranchers as the enemy.

• Laura Nolan:

  Those were organizations definitely that we feared before we got to know more about them.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  Today, their goals are aligned.

• Bill Milton:

  Over time the sort of mainstream environmental groups realize most of this ground that supports this wildlife is privately owned. So if you're in a conflict with a person who's providing most of the habitat for what you think is important, you either got to beat them, put them out of business, turn it all into a park, or you have to form an alliance with them.

• Laura Nolan:

  We've met a lot of traditional and non-traditional partners in this adventure that we're on.

• Alexis Bonogofsky:

  I think people sometimes are surprised that World Wildlife Fund has a program that works with ranchers.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  Alexis Bonogofsky raises sheep near billings, and she manages the Sustainable Ranching Initiative for World Wildlife Fund.

• Alexis Bonogofsky:

  If a rancher wants to change their grazing practices to, for example, give more rest to a certain area on their ranch every year, then World Wildlife Fund is able to help them with infrastructure costs to make that possible.

• Laura Nolan:

  We're all kind of meeting in the middle here because we do have these common goals. And part of that, too, is we have to not always be so defensive as ranchers and landowners, too. And we can improve what we're doing. And we should improve where we can.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  These ranchers and wildlife organizations are also working together to help the small towns that support ranching.

• Alexis Bonogofsky:

  We know that supporting these communities and the work that they're doing is the only way we will protect the northern Great Plains ecosystem. The conservation work isn't separate from the community work.

• Bill Milton:

  And it demonstrates to people who are still, I think, in the ranch community a little bit of scant. Like, well, I don't trust these guys. In the end, they're really coming out to get us. And I just don't believe that anymore because the evidence of people's actions are a lot more credible than people's projections of what they think they are.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  One of those team efforts, restoring a historic building on Main Street, turning it into an ice cream parlor, coffee shop, apartment, and community gathering space.

• Bill Milton:

  We all know that rural America in many places has been struggling, and I think we're finding that don't wait for some white horse to come galloping over the ridge to help you. If you want to create something better, you're going to have to take a role in creating that.

• Stan Parker (voice-over):

  For PBS News Weekend, I'm Stan Parker in Winnett, Montana.