Saturday, June 18, 2011

Out of the Sand Hills and into South Dakota

Yesterday was probably my most completely grassland day yet.  Farther east I was never far from agriculture.  In fact, Phelps County Nebraska is one of, if not the, most irrigated counties in the country.  It very much reminded me of the intensive agriculture I’m used to in the Midwest.  In reality, I think it’s much worse because they have fewer trees and less topography to deal with.
I started my day in the Sand Hills and moved into the open country of southwestern South Dakota.  As much as I liked the Flint Hills and the Sand Hills, I might like this even better.  It’s just as open, but it’s a little more rugged.  More than once I looked toward the horizon and wondered how many western movies had been filmed there.  What I don’t know is how intact the grasslands are.  I didn’t see any public land where I could roam around.   A million acre putting green would be wide open, but it sure wouldn’t support much native wildlife.
One of my motivations for making this trip was to see the prairie (healthy, functional prairie) while it still exists.  That logic suggests I think it we may lose the prairie.  That’s exactly what I think.  We’ve already lost over 95% of the original tallgrass prairie.  And it continues to be lost to agriculture, energy development, and simple neglect.  Mixed and shortgrass prairies have survived better because they lack the deep, rich organic soils created by the tallgrass prairie.  However, pivot irrigation and nitrogen fertilizers have rendered many acres fruitful that were once considered unsuitable for agriculture; with the price of a bushel of corn, we can’t consider those ecosystems safe. 
The problem is that to too many Americans the prairie is an invisible landscape.
Who is responsible to make it visible?  Anyone who recognizes the problem and sees the need to protect the prairie.  For one, me.  My trip and this blog is one step in my effort.  On a larger scale, I believe conservation organizations, public and private, governmental and NGO, need to make it a collective priority.  Unfortunately, even agencies within the government sometimes have goals and projects that conflicting. 
 This morning I passed a unit of the Nebraska National Forest which just happens to lie within the Sand Hills.  If that sounds odd to you – good; it should.  That unit of the Nebraska National Forest is not a natural forest.  It was planted.  On the prairie.  There are two places in this country where tallgrass prairie exists on a truly landscape scale – the Flint Hills and the Sand Hills.  And in the Sand Hills there are trees planted and managed by an agency of our government.  It kind of annoys me that Arbor Day was started in Nebraska, but I can understand folks wanting to have some trees around their homes.  I’m way beyond annoyed that not only did our government plant a forest on the prairie, but we continue to support it.  Is it filling a need more vital than preserving our most endangered ecosystem? 
I wish I could say that’s an isolated example of a government agency with policy that “challenges” the preservation and conservation of our grasslands.  Our agricultural and energy policy continue to provide incentives to convert untilled land to row crops, which I find to be especially confounding since those acres yet to be tilled are in many cases those areas less conducive to farming while we also have policy designed to remove land from tillage where it is unsuitable.  In some cases we continue to encourage use of exotic plants that have the potential to become invasive in our prairies.  Current energy policy and funding support an increase in acres of land in corn and the use of non-native species as energy feedstocks.   The problem is certainly not restricted to governmental policy, but I don’t think it unreasonable to expect the government to assume a unified leadership position rather than continuing to create conflicting incentives. 
The bottom line is that we just don’t recognize grasslands as ecosystems, let alone as needing protection.  We know rainforests are endangered even though they’re thousands of miles away.  Grasslands are invisible ecosystems.  What will it take to bring national attention to the loss of our own native landscape?  A good start would be to bring national attention to our grasslands.  

Sand Hills at Valentine NWR


I never miss a chance to check out a snake!  A beautiful bullsnake.


From Hwy 44 west of White River, SD

No comments:

Post a Comment