Western Montana's rich mining history dates from the gold rush days and continues today. Last year we received over 30 proposals to explore for minerals on public lands. Many old abandoned mines dot the landscape in our part of the west, seriously impacting the environment. As a consequence, mining is almost always very controversial. Our continuing challenge is to meet the demand for minerals and at the same time protect the environment.
M anaging public forest lands in western Montana is a complex and often controversial business.
We treat our 240,000 acres of forest lands as an ecosystem. This means working with other agencies and the public to make forest management compatible with the needs of wildlife, recreationists, and other players in the great ecological show. Last year we offered 3,134,390 board feet of timber. In addition, our forest product sales program allows individuals to harvest hundreds of cords of firewood, thousands of posts and poles and about a thousand Christmas trees annually. We are actively reforesting our land.