North Dakota’s public access program, Private Land Open to Sportsmen, topped 800,000 acres in 2020 thanks to sportsmen and women, and other supporters including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
“There’s some large tracts in the badlands that people are going to notice this year, in Billings County there was a nice addition that’s going to tie in some other public lands; those are always nice when we can connect some of those existing public lands through the private lands network,” Kevin Kading, North Dakota Game, Fish and Parks private lands section leader, told Dakota Edge Outdoors. “We do partner with a lot of different groups, and that one was partially sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation,”
Land owners receive a stipend for enrolling in the program and allowing the public on their private land.
Dating back to 1984, RMEF opened or improved public access to more than 1.2 million acres of land.
(Photo source: North Dakota Game, Fish and Parks)