BCA Annual Report 2022

The Badlands Conservation Alliance matters now more than ever. We exist to love and protect the badlands and butte country of western North Dakota, from below Marmarth all the way to the Killdeer Mountains and the confluence of the Little Missouri and Missouri Rivers near Twin Buttes, ND.

The badlands of North Dakota are widely celebrated in the history and literature of the American West. Sitting Bull often made his winter camps on the upper Little Missouri near Camp Crook, SD, and Alzada, MT. Theodore Roosevelt sojourned in the badlands between 1883-1887, and his time in Dakota Territory first changed his life and then the life of the nation.

Thanks to the advocacy of North Dakotans, the federal government created Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 1947. It's a relatively small National Park, but fortunately, it is surrounded by 1.2 million acres of America's National Grasslands, supervised by the U.S. Forest Service. This federal supervision can be frustrating to ranchers and developers, but it has enabled the people of North Dakota to conserve one of the most beautiful and fragile landscapes in America.

Photo by Clay Jenkinson

Industry wants to drill under virtually every square mile of western ND. We understand the need to continue to extract carbon from the northern Great Plains but in a careful and orderly way. But the badlands need friends and advocates who see something beyond the utilitarian, beyond profit, beyond extraction. We need your help as we continue our role as a watchdog in the badlands, as a reasonable champion of caution, respect, and reverence in a set of landscapes we regard as extraordinary, even sacred.

Our goal is to get you out into the badlands so that you can feel their magic and recognize how much they need the support of everyone who loves wild places, untrammeled landscapes, and brisk fresh air.

Some developers regard us as "a bunch of radical environmentalists" (not that there is anything wrong with that!), but, in fact, we are just solid North Dakota citizens (and friends elsewhere) who cherish the badlands and want to conserve them for the next generation(s). That's not radical. That's just good sense.

BCA 2022 Annual Meeting

The pressures on our beloved badlands in the twenty-first century are going to be fierce. The developers have millions and even billions of dollars and "friends" in government and legislative bodies. The heritage ranchers who have lived on the land for generations, the lovers of the Little Missouri Country, the Rooseveltians, and those who seek to conserve this precious region of the Great Plains, have only modest wealth, and many fewer "friends in high places”. It's not in any way a Square Deal. We need your help.

What we have is passion. An army of devoted lovers of the badlands can make a big difference in determining the future of western North Dakota. Together we can sway public opinion. And we can certainly find ways to protest against those who see the badlands as just another carbon platform and nothing of unique value.

If we can only achieve our economic goals by scarring the most beautiful places in North Dakota, we will be judged harshly by history. We can do this right.

Join Us.

Badlands Conservation Alliance
BadlandsConservationAlliance.org