Prairie Restoration

Across the world, prairies are among the most manipulated landscapes as prime sites for grain crops such as wheat and corn. Found in semiarid regions such as the North American Midwest and the Russian steppe, their mix of grasses and forbs (broadleaved herbs) sends roots deep. The native plants support a rich mix of animals, insects, and birds; the substitution of monocultural grain crops harms them. Prairie restorations are attempts to recover diversity by reintroducing a wide array of native plants. Full prairie restoration includes disturbances from periodic fires, which clear surface plant matter while reinvigorating the soils, and migration by native animals, whose hooves break up the topsoil layer to make way for new fresh growth once they have passed.

Early pioneers in prairie restoration include Midwesterners such as Jens Jensen (1860–1951) and Aldo Leopold (1887–1948). Jensen, a landscape architect, was instrumental in developing an aesthetic of native plants, seeing them as worthy rather than as weeds. Leopold's Sand County Almanac simply and beautifully describes the year he spent bringing back a degraded Wisconsin property. His writing celebrates unappreciated native plants such as the delphinium, which serendipitously survived, ignored along the railroad right-of-way. Leopold used his experience to develop a land ethic based on honoring the complexity of ecosystems and on an acknowledgment that health requires maintaining the interactions between species—the basis of prairie restoration. Leopold's ideas inspired many in the tallgrass prairie region, and groups in states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas have been leaders in prairie restoration. Academics and universities, land restoration organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, and citizen groups acquire land and develop prairie research and [Page 2279]restoration programs. The Society for Ecological Restoration is the professional association committed to such efforts.

Land managers set fire to a prairie burn with drip torches to stimulate new growth and recycle nutrients at Konza Biological Research Station, Manhattan, Kansas.

Source: Jeff Vanuga, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Restoration in the more western, drier, short-grass prairie has been a bit less active, perhaps because more of the ecosystem remains intact, though degraded particularly by the loss of animal species. Lands that have been grazed but not put to cultivation of crops still harbor native plants that revive when management mimics preagricultural patterns. Short-grass prairie restoration tends to emphasize native animals; for the American Prairie Foundation in Montana and the Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, for example, bison restoration is central. These efforts bring to life the concept of the Buffalo Commons, a term coined by Deborah and Frank Popper, advocating the reinvigoration of the North American Great Plains by using ecological restoration as the guiding principle for future development. Restored prairie addresses the problems of erosion and declining and contaminated water tables while providing economic opportunities both for high-quality ecotourism and for scientific research.

Prairie restoration is growing around the world. Severe dust storms in the Chinese grasslands, which caused extensive crop loss and animal deaths and damaged houses, have spurred restoration efforts there. Pilot projects involve collaboration between scientists and local communities to reduce animal-stocking numbers, to reseed overgrazed areas, and to reanalyze how the relatively new irrigation systems can be used strategically to support agricultural production without increasing erosion vulnerability. Russian restoration experiments date back to the 1960s. They remain small in scale and acreage, but, as elsewhere, interest and commitment to the effort are increasing.

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