“We have opportunities to save the Yellowstone ecosystem,” Ricketts told his guests under a huge tent near his own home. “If we don’t take advantage of those now, it will be lost forever.”

The thrust of Ricketts’ plan is to identify all the private landowners intermingled in the roughly 22 million acres of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and educate them on how they can help conserve its wild qualities. For example, he wanted them all to see where the wildlife migration paths cross their land, so they can use wildlife-friendly fencing to maintain those routes.

“I want to get them to love the ecosystem as much as you and I do,” Ricketts said. “Many of them just don’t know about it. There are others who don’t know and don’t care.”