Ameya Preserve

Park County, Montana

Protecting one of the northern hemisphere’s greatest wildlife migration routes

The threat to large tracts of open space in the West is imminent. Within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem alone there are over 6 million acres of privately owned land. The agriculture and ranching way of life is in jeopardy as its economic viability dwindles. The pressure to sell these lands for subdivision is tremendous. Unfortunately, this typically leads to traditional developments of individually fenced lots, highly engineered road networks, and fragmented ecosystems.

One notable alternative to this future is conservation-based development, where intensive uses are clustered in order to protect the remaining property. Ameya Preserve was conceived to be a landmark example of this approach. Occupying 11,000 acres at the north end of Montana’s Paradise Valley, the property serves as a critical link for wildlife migrating between Yellowstone National Park, the Yellowstone River, and the Absaroka Mountains. Directly adjacent to the northeastern border of the Gallatin National Forest, Ameya Preserve has some of the highest environmental value in the country and provides habitat for all apex and megafauna species present at the time of European settlement. This exceptional fact led to the project’s core mission: to use limited, very carefully designed development as a funding source to save substantial and important land and wildlife and also contribute to the local community of Livingston.

Services Provided: Site Analysis/GIS Database, Land Planning, Site Design, Landscape Architecture

Client

Greenfield Financial Group, LLC