Great Plains Restoration Council
Greetings!

Hello again from the land of sun, wind, grass and blue sky.

 

I'm writing you with both enthusiasm and sadness.

 

Another large colony of prairie dogs was poisoned on the Texas/Oklahoma border! Each year, America is losing more and more of its last remaining prairie dogs, along with our other native wildlife. This town was to be a main source for reintroducing black-tailed prairie dogs into prepared restoration areas on our new 12,000 acre Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness (CAPW) Recovery Project 200 miles NW of Fort Worth.

 

We really need your help. If we are going to save our prairie wildlife and build that new "culture of caring" that says we value our relationships with the planet, as well as protect our children's health and future, all of us must work even harder.  One way Great Plains Restoration Council does this is through our movement of young people taking care of their own health through taking care of their special places on Earth, so that the ongoing violence and disregard against our Earth (and health and future) starts to become a thing of the past.

 

GPRC has now protected over 18,000 acres, and our Plains Youth InterACTION program is streaming forward in both inner city Fort Worth and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. 

 

We've had a good year, we have been combing through and upgrading all of our operations, and are tightly focusing goals and strategy for key, core accomplishments in 2009. We've got lots of work to do, and since you are a part of this Ecological Health movement - we can't succeed without you - we need your help more than ever.

 

Please consider supporting GPRC's work by making a donation today. 

 

In the last year, we've:

 

  • Protected the 2,000 acre endangered tallgrass Fort Worth Prairie Park from the bulldozers for another year. This is a David and Goliath fight, but our side only gets stronger. This is a remnant of one of the rarest ecosystems in North America.
  •  Hosted Prairie Park tours throughout the year, building our list of supporters to include numerous churches, schools, individuals, youth groups, and community organizations.
  •  GPRC's signature Plains Youth InterACTION leadership development program ran concurrently in both inner city Fort Worth and in Thunder Valley, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Kids in both locations are learning just how integral and interconnected the health of themselves, their community and the Earth are, and this not only helps them improve their education and leadership in life, but also, through their work, directly improves the ecosystem in which they live.
  •  Completed the 2008 Plains Youth InterACTION Youth Summit, which brought our Indian kids down from South Dakota to join our Fort Worth kids for two days in Fort Worth and two days out at the new 12,000 acre Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness Recovery Project (CAPW)
  •  GPRC helped construct the first starter prairie dog town out in the new CAPW reserve up top above the copper breaks. Usually when prairie dogs are in sudden danger elsewhere of being poisoned, there is nowhere to take them. Proactively, we now have a rescue location town already constructed and waiting. And there is a lot more room to add more, when the need arises. The ultimate goal is to create a very large prairie dog town, or series of new prairie dog towns, on the Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness Recovery Project.  GPRC youth also marked the first sites of interest for a recreational/educational trail out at the CAPW.
  •  Held meetings with Texas Parks and Wildlife, got them to agree to landscape level protections, and are working with them on securing the release of the first family group of rare and endangered Southern Bison, who are only some 60+ animals left from the Great Southern Herd, and confined to a 330 acre cage. We need your help in getting the first group of these animals their freedom to roam, untagged, unmolested, never rounded up, but living as wildlife, inside the first 3,000 acre backcountry portion of our new 12,000 acre CAPW reserve. (Ultimately, over time, as the rest of the preserve undergoes more restoration, they will get to roam the whole acreage, while GPRC concurrently works to grow the preserve even larger.)
  •  Began design and development of the first-ever Ecological Health Curriculum, which will allow the successful principles of Plains Youth InterACTION to become available as coursework for schools nationwide, thereby getting to the root of so many of our problems - the simple lack of Ecological Health education.
  •  Were invited speakers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the International Urban Parks Conference in Pittsburgh (over 36 different countries attended and where "KB," one of GPRC's youth leaders, had his first public speaking role), and at churches, community events, and more locally and nationally.
  •  Thunder Valley, our youth program partners on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, secured two large federal grants that will allow them to begin acquisition of the land and architectural design of the new community house they need to create the first totally green community, which will serve as a place for Ecological Health work, education, ecosystem restoration, wildlife protection, and youth rescue to positively influence the entire reservation. 
  •  Anti-sewage dumping victory for Rock Creek and the Fort Worth Prairie Park! This just in - after a year long battle, the polluter who wanted to greatly expand a trailer park a few miles upstream of the Prairie Park and dump 10,000 gallons of sewage each day into our pristine Rock Creek, has withdrawn their water pollution permit application from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Rock Creek is the main waterway of the Prairie Park, harbors highly sensitive and rare aquatic wildlife, approaches near wilderness quality on this stretch, and is one of the cleanest tributaries in the Trinity River Watershed.

 

In 2009, with your help, we hope to accomplish:

 

  • Fund and secure at least a three-year price option and bulldozing moratorium on the endangered tallgrass Fort Worth Prairie Park
  • Standardize Plains Youth InterACTION so it can be available for implementation and to help youth in other communities nationwide
  • Implement Youth InterACTION in at least one new location outside of our existing two
  • Complete the restoration and fencing work needed on the back 3,000 acres of the Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness Recovery Project
  • Complete all the arrangements, agreements and preconditions with the State of Texas for release and reintroduction of one family group of the endangered Southern bison into the back 3,000 acres of the Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness
  • Hold the Plains Youth InterACTION Youth Summit 2009 - 5 days in July, held this time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
  • Rescue and release at least two coteries of black-tailed prairie dogs into our first starter town on 45 acres of tableland above the Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness copper breaks
  • Complete the Ecological Health Curriculum and work with school partners in Fort Worth and Houston to "test-drive" it
  • Hire an extra staff person in South Dakota to help facilitate and complete Badland National Park's acquisition - and ecological connecting - of our adjacent 4,600 acre Oglala Prairie Preserve
  • Begin youth-led community restoration of 25 tallgrass prairie acres north of the old white house on the Fort Worth Prairie Park
  • Continue national and local public outreach and advocacy for advancing the Ecological Health movement 

 

All this work will require lots of relationship building, awareness raising, national and local community outreach, volunteer hours, and dollars.

 

If you haven't already, please update your email address with GPRC so we may stay in touch. GPRC is rolling out a monthly e-newsletter starting in 2009, along with periodic updates and/or action alerts.

 

We will likely need your public pressure help in getting the State of Texas to complete the task of setting the first bison free, or Badlands National Park officially expanded through appropriations. (The Park wants to do this; it's just the appropriations committees and politics that take so long.)

 

So, as you can see we are very busy. GPRC's work and momentum for change and true health is exhilarating. But again, we can't do it without you. We need your financial support more than ever in order to maintain and continue this growth. We must significantly increase our budget.

 

Please consider supporting GPRC's work by making a donation today. 

 

Please help us build a strong, vital future toward that time when the buffalo are freer, some prairie dog towns are forever safe, our kids are healthy and self-empowered, and the waters flow free and clear again.

 

Please help us work toward that time of peace and renewal, when we don't use violence to communicate with each other and our sacred, shattered Earth.

 

Please give as much as you can. You know your tax-deductible gift goes straight to our important work. We at GPRC have committed our lives to doing this critical work, but we can't do it without your generous support.

 

Thank you very much - from all of us out here in the land of sun, wind, grass and blue sky. May you be blessed in all ways in 2009.

 

Sincerely,

 logo 
 Jarid Manos

CEO

Great Plains Restoration Council

 

 

P.S. Please don't put this letter down without picking up your pen and writing Great Plains Restoration Council as generous a check as you can. If it is easier for you, you may also donate online effortlessly at our website, where for less than a cup of coffee a day you can make a huge difference in the lives of our prairie wildlife and youth.

 

http://www.gprc.org/makeadonation.html

 

Please also pass this letter on to any of your friends and family who may want to join the movement.

 

You know your gift will be used wisely and effectively to help heal the Great Plains and build new Ecological Health leaders in our youth. Thank you very much for caring.

 

 

P.S. If you have already given recently, we want to say THANK YOU so much, and hope you will keep us in your thoughts.