Friends of Park County

Friends of Park County works to promote thoughtfully planned growth in order to protect and enhance Park County's vibrant communities, sustainable working lands, and healthy natural resources.

Park County is a world-class place with lively communities, breathtaking views, extraordinary natural resources, productive agricultural lands, and spectacular wildlife. We believe in a future that maintains these cherished assets, even as we grow.

Friends of Park County focuses on one thing: preparing for the growth coming our way. We can see what may be in our future if we look west to the Gallatin Valley: sprawling development, ranchlands converted to subdivisions, depleted and polluted water supplies, expensive housing, and stressed wildlife.

That's why we work for land use policies and decisions that protect the community character, agricultural lands, water, open space, and wildlife habitat of Park County.

Our Executive Director and Board Members are your neighbors and we share your concerns that community voices should be present whenever decisions are being made about land use in our county.

• We are in favor of regenerative ranching that enhances the land, as demonstrated by North Bridger Bison is accomplishing in the north end of the Shields Valley. 
• We applaud the work of local neighborhoods to protect their unique characteristics, as we saw when Suce Creek implemented Citizen Initiated Zoning and thereby created the Suce Creek Zoning District in order to prevent the development of a large resort. 
• We strive to support the efforts of our fellow nonprofit organizations in Park County who work hard to mobilize community voices when outside businesses propose inappropriate land uses, protect animals and automobiles on our shared roadways, and provide educational opportunities for Park County citizens to learn more about the ways in which animals and Indigenous tribes lived on and interacted with this landscape for millennia before the arrival of roads, fences, and modern development.
• We believe that just as the waterways of our state are interconnected, the residents of Park County are interconnected –– and therefore we need to work together for mutually beneficial land use solutions.

Photo credits (& captions), left to right: North Bridger Bison, ERA Landmark Real Estate (property line boundaries of ranch land for sale in Suce Creek), Park County Environmental Council (mock-up image of potential resort development in Suce Creek), Maggie McGuane (podcast re: citizen-initiated in Suce Creek), Barb Oldershaw (Tour of drive lines and buffalo jumps in Paradise Valley, hosted by Yellowstone Gateway Museum Foundation), EarthArtAustralia (Montana Rivers Detailed Topographic Art), Heidi Barrett.