Gallatin Valley Land Trust easement conserves 2,200 acres on family ranch SW of Bozeman

By Lilly Keller

Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Over 2,200 acres of farmland near Gallatin Gateway will remain protected from development after the Kamps family finalized a conservation easement with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, marking GVLT’s 131st easement since 1990.

The 2,267-acre ranch, located west of the Gallatin River between Four Corners and Gallatin Gateway, has been in the Kamps family since the 1940s, when Louis Kamps Jr.’s grandfather first purchased the land.

Now a dryland farm producing wheat and barley on and around Pine Butte, it is owned and operated by Louis Jr., who grew up farming alongside his father. To keep the ranch intact for future generations amid rising property values and rapid development, he chose to establish a conservation easement.

“We knew we either had to sell the property or put an easement on it to keep it in our family,” Kamps Jr. said in a Monday press release from GVLT.

A Headwaters Economics report shows that between 1990 and 2016, over 93,440 acres (146 square miles) were converted from open space to residential development in Gallatin County. Additionally, from 2001-2016, the county’s population grew three times faster than the state average.

In response to this increased development, some landowners choose conservation easements. These voluntary agreements with land trusts such as GVLT allow landowners to donate development rights, ensuring their property remains undeveloped.

Even if the land is sold, the easement remains in place. Due to restrictions on development, the land could lose value; however, the landowner is typically either financially compensated or receives tax credits for the loss.

According to GVLT Conservation Director Brendan Weiner, the nonprofit has been in talks with the Kamps family about the easement for nearly seven years.

Since 2000, the voter-approved Gallatin County Open Lands Program has compensated landowners, including farmers and ranchers, for the lost development value, making it financially feasible to conserve properties that might otherwise be sold. Voters renewed funding for the Open Lands Program in 2018.

To date, the program has conserved over 50,000 acres — or 78 square miles, more than three times the size of Bozeman. The program’s bond funding also attracts matching funds from government conservation programs, leveraging taxpayer dollars at a five-to-one ratio, according to GVLT.

To establish the easement, the Kamps family donated a significant portion of the property’s value. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) matched this donation, and additional funding was provided by the Gallatin Valley Open Lands Program.

Three conservation easements are within one mile of the property, with 100,000 acres of conserved open space, including Ted Turner’s nearby Flying D Ranch, located within five miles. The property also provides vital native grassland habitat for wildlife, including critical winter range for elk and mule deer, according to Weiner, GVLT’s conservation director.

“One of the most important reasons that this is a prime candidate for conservation is that it’s connected to thousands of acres of land that is already conserved with a conservation easement or public lands,” he said. “So agricultural properties are near other agricultural properties and wildlife have the ability to move across large areas of conserved land. It really kind of fits in to where conservation work has already happened.”

Since the 1990s, GVLT has partnered with private landowners to conserve nearly 70,000 acres.