HELENA- One hundred people from 82 different countries meet up with the Prickly Pear Land Trust (PPLT) on Wednesday to better understand public land and what land trusts do.
"There were a lot of questions about the tools we use for land protection, and part of that is because those tools are not synonymous everywhere,” Prickly Pear Land Trust executive director Mary Hollow said.
All 100 people are part of a master's program at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. There were also senior-ranking military officers in attendance from their respective countries.
PPLT has experience partnering with military installations. A 2021 project involved PPLT working with the Montana Army National Guard and the Department of Defense to conserve land between Townsend and Toston in Broadwater County.
The Tri-G River ranch project not only helped protect agricultural land along the Missouri, but it also ensured a continued buffer between military training areas and the public. In all, the land trust has helped protect more than 1,700 acres near Fort Harrison and the Limestone Hills.
“They are interested in how public lands function and work and are expanded and how land trusts make additions to public lands and increase access projects,” Hollow said.
The tour Wednesday included a walk around Tenmile Creek Park which sits right across the road from Fort Harrison.
The ultimate goal is that these future leaders take these partnership examples and lessons on diplomacy and democracy back home with them.
“They’re interested in how that works in the U.S. and taking those bits of information back to their countries,” Hollow said.
