Missoula, Montana—At the Montana Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting November 9, 2009, PERC’s Terry Anderson and Reed Watson gave a presentation on Montana’s ever-expanding Stream Access Law and the implications of that expansion for the state’s farmers and ranchers.
During two workshop sessions, the pair described how the recent Montana Supreme Court case granting the public access to the privately owned Mitchell Ditch is the latest example of a state-wide erosion of private property rights in the name of public hunting and fishing access. Anderson and Watson described to approximately 100 farmers and ranchers from across the state just how such decisions simultaneously threaten the rights of private land owners and create disincentives for private environmental conservation. Paired with a video documenting the Mitchell Ditch controversy, the PERC presentation caused quite a stir among Farm Bureau delegates.
With additional support from private property owners, PERC will deliver the presentation to individual Farm Bureau districts throughout southwest Montana. By communicating the importance of private property rights to Montana’s agricultural community and to private environmental stewardship, PERC hopes to shift state policy away from unlimited public access and towards a more vigorous enforcement of constitutionally defined private property rights.
Founded 30 years ago in Bozeman, Montana, PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center—is the nation’s oldest and largest institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets.
PERC’s publications, each designed to resonate with specific groups, move ideas generated at PERC to broader audiences.
Research is at the heart of PERC's work, with a focus on the question: What is the link between economic growth and environmental quality?
The goal of PERC’s programs is to fully realize the vision of establishing “PERC University,” where scholars, students, policy makers, and others convene to expand the applications of free market environmentalism.
PERC's fellowships share a common goal of exposing new scholars, students, journalists, and policy makers to free market environmentalism, as well as enable scholars already familiar with FME to explore new applications.
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