Our Conservation Work >

Grasslands 2010

An action plan for creating grassland reserves and sustaining
healthy grasslands and communities in the Northern Great Plains

Grasslands 2010, is a joint project of the
Grassland Foundation and the Northern Great Plains
Program of World Wildlife Fund in collaboration with
other partners, has the following long-term goals for
the Northern Great Plains:

  • Increase to 10% from the
    current 1.5% the amount of land in grassland reserves.
  • Conserve native prairie and wildlife by avoiding loss to cultivation and by expanding biodiversity friendly grazing practices.

Grasslands 2010 aims to create a framework for achieving these goals by having in place by 2010:

  • Strong incentives for private land stewardship
  • Sound public land management policies and programs
  • Supportive federal, state and provincial policies and funding
  • Strategic investments by the private sector

A region in need of new
economic alternatives

The Northern Great Plains has suffered economic and demographic decline. Despite more than $24 billion in federal agricultural subsidies from 1995–2003 for the five states of the Northern Great Plains, agriculture's contribution to the region's gross state product declined from 8% in the early 1980s to just 4% today. Increasingly competitive global markets, taxpayer impatience with subsidies, and predicted climate change scenarios portend a continuation of this trend.

Two-thirds of Northern Great Plains counties lost population during the last decade, the continuation of a long-term trend. Many ranches and farms are for sale as the owners age and young people leave in search of new opportunities. As a consequence, small towns are shrinking, services are being lost, and schools are closing.

A wild spectacle lost . . .
but it can be brought back

Few recall that the Northern Great Plains once rivaled Africa’s savannahs in terms of wildlife abundance. But both wildlife and the Native American population were quickly displaced by settlers and livestock in the last half of the 1800s, and the region was largely overlooked when the system of parks, refuges and reserves was created in the U.S. and Canada during the 1900s. Consequently, only 1.5% of the Northern Great Plains is now in such conservation areas. Though the wildlife spectacle that so stirred Lewis & Clark is largely gone, much of the native grassland cover of the Northern Great Plains remains intact, making restoration of the region’s rich natural heritage possible and practical.

For this to happen on a significant scale, we must turn this natural heritage into a natural amenity for the benefit of local communities.

To download the Grasslands 2010 Pamphlet as a PDF, please click here.