Greater Yellowstone Coalition

Land & wildlife conservation Greater Yellowstone's public and private lands stitch together a stunning tapestry of habitat for the regions celebrated wildlife. Gyc conserves the most critical parts of this landscape through on-the-ground projects and building public support for policies that protect key lands. Current priorities include protecting lands from proposed gold mines, securing new protections for wildlife migration routes, and safeguarding core grizzly bear habitat. Gyc also plays a lead role in conserving the regions iconic wildlife, with a focus on grizzly bears, bison, and migrating ungulates like elk, mule deer, and pronghorn. Gyc secures funding for new wildlife highway crossings, prevents conflicts between people and wildlife, advocates for science-based wildlife management, and restores bison to their ancestral homelands on tribal and select public lands.

Climate change & water protection as the impacts of climate change accelerate across the region, the cold clean water that brings life to Greater Yellowstone are under threat. To build regional resiliency and protect wildlife and habitat from the mounting challenges of a rapidly changing climate, gyc focuses on advancing policies and projects that protect and restore key waterways around the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Current priorities including protecting 384 miles of rivers in Montana through federal legislation, and partnering with scientists, agencies, tribes, and landowners across the region to develop cutting edge climate science and innovative projects and policies that build Greater resiliency to climate change impacts, with a focus on rivers, forests, and sensitive wildlife habitats.

Tribal conservation priorities & partnerships gyc recognizes the western conservation movement has historically excluded and ignored diverse voices and perspectives, especially those of indigenous people. Gyc seeks to change this paradigm by working within strategic partnerships and tribal-centered programs to honor indigenous conservation priorities, advance tribal rights, and return indigenous ecosystem management practices to the landscape. This includes revitalizing the big wind river, building capacity within tribal communities by investing in indigenous leadership, and expanding the cultural and ecological restoration of buffalo. Gycs indigenous staff members lead this work from the organizations office on the wind river reservation in western Wyoming.