Today, conservation districts promote education, incentive-based and voluntary approaches to conservation. They serve as non-regulatory, trusted, local partners helping people care for natural resources.

Conservation districts may:

Rent out a wide array of equipment for conservation practices to land users. Equipment may include tree planters, fabric layers, weed sprayers, weed badgers, conservation tillage drills, grass seeders, and tree chippers

Create and maintain interpretive trails and pollinator gardens

Lead and work on local and regional river basin or watershed issues

Educate urban homeowners on small acreage management

Manage projects throughout the state

Lead, sponsor or promote workshops throughout the state

In the early 1930's, along with the greatest depression this nation ever experienced, came an equally unparalleled ecological disaster known as the Dust Bowl. Following a severe and sustained drought in the Great Plains, the region's soil began to erode and blow away; creating huge black dust storms that blotted out the sun and swallowed the countryside. On Capitol Hill, Congress unanimously passed legislation declaring soil and water conservation a national policy and priority. In 1937, President Roosevelt wrote the governors of all the states recommending legislation that would allow local landowners to form soil conservations.

The first conservation districts were formed in Sheridan and Wibaux Counties in 1939 and today, most land in Montana is within a boundary of our 58 conservation districts.