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Hello from the Great Plains! I wanted to share some good, hopeful, encouraging news.
I recently traveled through some of the outback American Great Plains to get a sense of what has changed, what has gotten better or worse. Some places I hadn't been to since publication of my first book.
I spent time in Colorado, Kansas, and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, with a south-to-north drive through Nebraska's Sandhills.
From a landscape that was completely shattered in the 90s, I am pleased to report that in general things have gotten better on the Great Plains. That's a profound statement.
Here are some highlights:
Southern Plains Land Trust: In Southeast Colorado, the Southern Plains Land Trust has created an astoundingly beautiful preserve over 32,000 acres in size and growing to 43,000 acres by 2024! It can expand even more.
While I was there, we worked on a cross-fence removal project.
Fence Removal, Leadership Personnel: Southern Plains Land Trust, Southeast Colorado
As they write on their website, "A preserve that big gives the legendary American athlete, the pronghorn, room to stretch their runners' legs. It gives the US National Mammal, the bison, more area to maintain prairie grasslands. Expanding Heartland Ranch will help bring to life SPLT's vision of an American Serengeti."
I was a founding board member of SPLT in 1999, so it is especially fulfilling to see such progress.We should all congratulate and support them.
Elk also have returned to the Southern Plains Land Trust prairie, black-tailed prairie dog colonies are healthy and absolutely protected here, and they hope to reintroduce black-footed ferrets in the future.
Healthy, protected black-tailed prairie dog down. Heartland Ranch Preserve, Southern Plains Land Trust
When that occurs, only wolves and grizzly bears (who need very large areas of wild habitat) will be missing from the original suite of wildlife once present for thousands of years.
The feeling of walking out there in such rewilding Open Country is largely indescribable. In repeated moments, you almost step in and out of one of George Catlin's pre-settlement paintings from the 1830s.
"Buffalo Bull Grazing on the Prairie", George Catlin, 1832-1833, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Museum of Art
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Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site: Where an unspeakable atrocity in American history occurred, where over 230 Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho, mostly women, children and elderly, lost their lives on November 29, 1864, this site has been acquired by the United States National Park Service, and includes Congressional approval to encompass and restore 12,000 acres of Colorado shortgrass prairie.
The bend in Sand Creek is protected as a sacred site in partnership with the Tribes and this represents a step forward in healing.
If you ever have a chance to go out there, and it is far from everywhere, the acoustic silence will reverberate in you. The land speaks.
For more, see The Sand Creek Massacre - 8 Hours that changed the Great Plains forever.
The creek bend where the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment was. Some cottonwood trees have grown up in the absence of fire since then.
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Smoky Hill River Country, Kansas/Smoky Valley Ranch: The Nature Conservancy of Kansas has protected and restored 18,000 acres on both sides of the Smoky Hill River.
While this legendary area was heavily militarized during the Indian Wars and a site of massive buffalo killing, the Smoky Hill River country of today, with still-existing stretches of unplowed green prairie, ancient limestone, and chalk bluffs is a hidden, resonating region of America.
The prairie light saturates you, they have about 1,800 acres of wild black-tailed prairie dog colonies, and miles of trails open to the public.
The Nature Conservancy's Smoky Valley Ranch manages for black-tailed prairie dogs in its core, and Lesser Prairie Chickens in the outer reaches, and in 2017 reintroduced genetically pure bison.
The three main drivers of this shortgrass prairie region are grazing, fire, and drought, and TNC works with these systems to showcase conservation resilience to other landholders in the area.
Smoky Valley Ranch prairie and bluffs, The Nature Conservancy, Kansas
Milky Way
Moonrise over the Kansas Ocean
Butterfield Trail Museum in Russell Springs, KS was very friendly and helpful with research.
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The all-Black town of Nicodemus, Kansas: The oldest and only remaining all-Black town west of the Mississippi River, in existence since families emigrated from the Reconstruction-era American South to live way out in the northwest Kansas prairie in 1877, has become a National Historic Site. This tiny town is steeped in living history.
When people first got off the train in Ellis, Kansas, they had to walk 35 miles north.
And when they came over a rise on the north side of the Solomon River and saw smoke coming out of the ground (from first arrivals living in dugouts) they "knew we were home", and have stayed ever since, becoming part of the prairie and the prairie part of them.
Old Saint Francis Hotel (with newer add-on in front). On the National Park Service illustration board you can see how it looked at first. Nicodemus, Kansas
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Nebraska: When Drs. Frank and Deborah Popper of Rutgers University first offered the Buffalo Commons idea back in the late 80s, they looked at population sizes of Great Plains counties.
My drive south to north through the Sandhills showed a landscape that with a few exceptions was much less overgrazed, filled with natural lakes formed after the last Ice Age that were largely much healthier.
This part of Nebraska was oddly silent. Aside from the short stint on I-80, as I drove south to north through the entire state, I passed maybe 10 cars, and never saw a single person outside.
Nebraska Sandhills
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Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Badlands National Park, South Dakota: It was great to see longtime Oglala Lakota friends, who helped run the Oglala Lakota satellite program of Great Plains Restoration Council's Plains Youth InterACTION program from 2000 to 2009.
While Oglala folks have weathered hardships unimaginable to most people, they continue believing in and working for the future.
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation life, South Dakota
And just north of the Reservation on Treaty Land in Badlands National Park, last October the National Park Service, working with World Wildlife Fund and charitable donors, arranged a land swap that now consolidates the prairie inside the North Unit of Badlands National Park.
This allows bison (buffalo) to roam 80,000 contiguous acres of Northern Plains South Dakota mixed-grass prairie, marking the first time since the 1870s that their hooves have touched this ground.
Now the symbiotic relationship between buffalo (Tatanka – "He Who Owns Us") and prairie dogs (Pispiza Oyate), other prairie animals, and Lakota folks can flourish here.
Quoted: "As a tribe, we and the buffalo are one and the same," said Monica Terkildsen, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Tribal Community Liaison for World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Northern Great Plains Program. "The buffalo represent our own healthy return."
For more information, click here.
It is a milestone for ecological and cultural healing.
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Lastly:
Less overgrazing: In some areas, the land of the outback Great Plains I traveled through seems less overgrazed than it was in the 90s.
More wildlife-friendly fencing: I saw fencing in places where the bottom strand has been removed for safer passage for pronghorn antelope and other animals or, even better, some landholders who are raising cattle have switched to single-wire electrical fencing or smooth (not barbed) wire fences that are also raised for wildlife passage. Ideally, this will be instituted everywhere.
On the Great Plains, fencing used to consist of hard 5-strand barbed wire or woven wire fencing down to the ground, throughout the land.
Unmodified barbed wire can cause harm to native wildlife just like drift nets in the sea.
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The Future:
All of these places, along with our Fort Worth Prairie Park, can be expanded. And there are other areas in protection in other parts of the Plains.
30 by 30: Conservation buyers looking to support America's exciting new "30 by 30" push to protect 30% of American lands and waters by 2030 can work with any of these preserves and sites to help make sure Great Plains grasslands are significantly included. 30 by 30 is a global effort, and we get to do our part.
Conclusion:
While in places the outback Plains still has its dangers for wildlife and some people, this land once left for dead, with much trauma and sorrow, is showing vital signs of rebirth.
If our world can somehow solve the climate crisis and we continue working at getting along better with each other, both which I'm hopeful of and believe is possible, it's likely the future Great Plains will be one of massive restored health for people and wildlife.
We're all in this together. Possibility is what connects us all.
Ecological Health is what we work for at Great Plains Restoration Council – a new culture of health and caring that includes everybody – people and wildlife.
Thanks for being part of the journey.
From all of us, we send best health and best wishes from the land of sun, wind, grass and blue sky.
Jarid Manos
Founder & CEO
Great Plains Restoration Council
All donations are tax-deductible.
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