Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Prairie Preserves
Within three years of its beginning, Prairie Plains was given two gifts of land, includ-
ing a six-acre property along the muddy Lincoln Creek just a half mile from home
(Lincoln Creek Prairie), and a 320-acre pasture and cropland dedicated to the Pearl
Harbor Survivors Preserve, ninety miles west of Aurora in the Nebraska Loess Hills.
Both of these properties offered potential for restoration of existing degraded prairie
and new prairie plantings in existing croplands. In addition, both were potential edu-
cation areas, one in Aurora and easily accessible, the other near a college (University
of Nebraska at Kearney) and access to students. These two acquisitions were critical in
a number of ways. Ownership is a serious responsibility, along with managing land. It
comes with costs, while also providing certain benefits and opportunities for program-
ming. We used the opportunity of being landowners to learn how to safely conduct
prescribed burns, experiment with different planting techniques, and return degraded
pastures into more diverse and productive prairies again. “In America owning land
gives you power,” a friend of mine used to say, and it holds true (see chap. 11, this vol-
ume). In our case these two properties gave us credibility as a land trust. We were now
recognized as worthy to receive such significant gifts, and we began to build a track
record by which others could begin to measure our efforts. Through the 1980s, we be-
came more proficient in burning parts of these properties. (Prairie Plains was one of a
small group of prescribed burning pioneers in Nebraska in the early 1980s. We dis-
covered that showing up in the driveway with a piece of equipment paved the way for
lasting partnerships with landowners who wanted to burn.) We also conducted field
trips on occasion. Small-scale prairie restoration work was progressing at the Lincoln
Creek area.
In 1989 another gift of land materialized, a high-quality, thirty-acre virgin tallgrass
prairie, also in our home county. It was dedicated as the Marie Ratzlaff Prairie Pre-
serve. This site added to our management responsibilities, but again it offered educa-
tional raw material and native seed. The true significance of Ratzlaff Prairie was that it
fulfilled our early dream of having local county preserves. This was followed a few
years later by two even larger gifts—significant for their size, scenery, history, and nat-
ural diversity. One of these was a five-thousand-acre ranch in Nebraska's western pan-
handle, dedicated as the Guadalcanal Memorial Prairie Ranch. The other, Olson Na-
ture Preserve, was donated by a community group specifically for development as an
educational natural area for local schools and Scouts. Finally, in 2001 and 2002, we
acquired two more properties. One, the 390-acre Griffith Prairie and Farm, with its
scenic river bluff prairie fronting the Platte River, was also near our headquarters in
Aurora (we received a grant to purchase this one—still a gift!), and another virgin tall-
grass prairie with adjoining restorable cropland, the Frank L. and Lillian Pokorny Me-
morial Prairie near Schuyler, Nebraska. Our holdings had quickly grown to seven
properties totaling 5,800 acres. All but one was donated (fee simple title), and many
are truly spectacular, classic Plains landscapes. All contain unique native plant com-
munities, two include considerable stretches of major Nebraska prairie rivers (Platte
and Niobrara) and two smaller creeks (Boone County's Beaver Creek and Hamilton
