A major milestone was reached in prairie conservation today when our good friends and partners over at Prairie Plains Resource Institute (PPRI) planted their 10,000th acre of prairie.
Ten thousand acres of new prairie in Nebraska! It’s an incredible contribution to our state, and to conservation in general.
Bill Whitney (co-founder and executive director of PPRI) has been a major influence on my career and the careers of many of us in grassland conservation. He is the godfather of prairie restoration in Nebraska, and personally mentored me in both prairie ecology and restoration during my early years as a young land steward. If you’re not familiar with Prairie Plains, please click HERE to read more about today’s milestone and all their other accomplishments.
Congratulations and THANK YOU to Bill, Jan, Mike, Sarah, Amy, and Jeff (along with all the other PPRI staff through the years).
Bill Whitney, co-founder and executive director of Prairie Plains Resource Institute harvesting native grass seeds.
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To put Prairie Plains’ 10,000 acres of restored prairie in context, consider these statistics.
- In 1978, there was an estimated 2,300 acres of high quality prairie left in the entire state of Illinois.
- There are an estimated 12,000 acres of prairie left in Wisconsin today.
- Iowa has less than 30,000 acres of its original tallgrass prairie left.
