“I can go outside here and take a big breath of fresh air,” says Flint Creek Valley rancher Clare Bloom. “See the beautiful sunsets, or blue sky.”
This April, Five Valleys and Clare worked together to permanently protect 836 acres of her ranch just outside of Philipsburg.
The Bloom Ranch has been a staple of agriculture in the Flint Creek Valley for generations. When Clare’s grandparents purchased the property in 1919 it was already dairy farm. Now, the fourth and fifth generations of the family help care for the property, using its valley-bottom soils to grow hay and raise cattle.
The Bloom Ranch contains a mix of rangeland, irrigated cropland, and riparian areas. Marshall Creek flows along the northern edge of the property before it meets nearby Flint Creek. The landscape supports elk, resident and migratory birds, small mammals and reptiles, and native trout. Sometimes, even the occasional bear wanders through. But for Clare, it is the generations of her family, and the decades of work that they have put into the land, that inspired her to work with Five Valleys.
“I hope we can keep it in ag,” Clare says.
Five Valleys is working to do just that by keeping ranchers on the ground and the land open for agriculture and wildlife. Like many easement grantors, the Bloom family is putting the proceeds from the sale of their conservation easement back into their business and land. They have plans to repair buildings, install better irrigation infrastructure, and other improvements that will benefit the property and the next generation.
Since 2018, Five Valleys has worked with three area ranches—J T Ranches, the Rocking Chair Ranch, and the Bloom Ranch—to protect over 3,300 acres in the Upper Flint Creek Valley. Combined, those conserved ranches now provide a 3-mile wildlife habitat and agricultural open space buffer around Philipsburg.
The Bloom Ranch conservation easement was the first project to use Five Valleys’ $3.7M Regional Conservation Partnership Program grant, administered through the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The project was also made possible by a generous in-kind donation from Clare, funding from Atira Conservation, and grants from the Cinnabar Foundation and the William H. and Margaret M. Wallace Foundation.
“It does my heart good,” says Clare of her land protection efforts. Us, too.
Header photo by Revealing Earth
