|
|
 Welcome to our first electronic newsletter. With a sense of alarm over the increasing loss and damage of our native prairies and the problems facing many youth out here in America's "Flyover Country," and with a proud track record behind us, Great Plains Restoration Council is in the process of streamlining its focus so we can concentrate all our resources and efforts into the areas of most critical need. We are developing a five-year plan geared toward several specific conservation and youth goals, which we will unveil in the next couple months. In a stepwise manner, this restructuring will allow us to protect and rebuild our target prairie ecosystems and enroll a much greater number of young people in Ecological Health programming.
We will be in touch on a regular basis from here on out.
The very real potential for ecological extinction of Southern Plains prairie ecosystems, and the severity of the damage facing our young people, demands that we prioritize.
Most people have no idea just how little original native prairie is left, particularly of the various tallgrass prairie systems.
At the same time, GPRC's long-term engagement of struggling youth in the hands-on protection and recovery of wild prairies - literally applying work in wild nature as a therapeutic modality for physical and mental health, and using that work as a curriculum pathway for life and job skills, supported by carefully-selected mentors and social workers - has demonstrated to us adults the power and potential of deep restoration work, and we need to expand this reach.
Yvon Chouinard, founder of the esteemed international outdoor clothing line Patagonia, Inc., (one of the greenest and most ethical companies on Earth) has said: "GPRC's goal of building a national movement of young people taking care of their own health through taking care of the special places on Earth is one we at Patagonia wholeheartedly believe in."
The Buffalo Commons can't happen in a vacuum. Protecting wild nature is a matter of public health in so many ways.
If you haven't already joined GPRC, please consider supporting our work with a donation, and please spread the word. There are many volunteer opportunities as well. We can't do this work without you.
Thank for caring. You can have the most exhilarating life by getting healthy and giving back.
Jarid Manos
Founder & CEO
Great Plains Restoration Council
|
Meet Andetra Fennie
GPRC's Executive Director
GPRC is proud to announce
Andetra Fennie, MBA, who comes to us from Houston and Los Angeles, and
has been helping lead GPRC as its Executive Director since 2008. Andetra
is a treasured member of the lead team, manages all of GPRC's business
operations, and you can learn more about her work at GPRC.org. Expect
to hear more from her shortly.
|
Fort Worth Prairie Park
First - we must save the still-unprotected 2,000 acre Fort Worth Prairie Park, which is a remnant of a unique tallgrass prairie/limestone seeps/prairie barrens ecosystem, the once 1.3 million acre Fort Worth Prairie Ecosystem that exists nowhere else in the world. This 2,000 acre remnant is very important as a breeding and resting ground for internationally migrating birds and Monarch butterflies, as a hotspot of native plant biodiversity, and for public health and ecological education.
 In 2009, it is very rare to find 2,000 contiguous acres of highly-biodiverse original native prairie still intact. If we don't act now, the Fort Worth Prairie ecosystem will go the way of the Blackland Prairie (which was once 12 million acres stretching from Dallas to Austin and now only exists in a few scattered patches of 10 to a few hundred acres), or the Gulf Coastal Prairie (formerly 6 million acres), where the 300 acre Nash Prairie, southwest of Houston, is considered to be perhaps the best remaining place left.
GPRC and our partners, including bi-partisan local and state elected officials, have kept the Fort Worth Prairie Park safe from the bulldozers for three years. The Texas General Land Office, which owns the land, has agreed to work with us toward a conservation alternative. We need your help.
GPRC's Plains Youth InterACTION kids working on the pipeline prairie restoration before Spring green-up at the Fort Worth Prairie Park.
Action items:
Capital Campaign forming now to permanently protect the endangered Fort Worth Prairie Park. Please contact us at info@gprc.org to see how you can get involved.
Fort Worth Prairie Park - pipeline prairie restoration project
Want to learn more about native prairie plants and get outside in wild nature at the same time?
GPRC's PLAINS YOUTH INTERACTION program has begun restoration on 2 miles of gas pipeline cut that need to be restored to native prairie before getting infected by invasive weeds.
 Great Plains Restoration Council has received a generous donation covering the significant cost of native seed to complete the project. We've had to work with a couple different seed companies to rigorously source the proper native seed mix. With these 15 different grasses and wildflowers as a starter, we are stabilizing the cut and setting into motion a long-term successional repair. (The Fort Worth Prairie contains approximately 700 different native species.)
Volunteer work crews are forming now until the job is done. We will work through the fall and winter. Please bring extra garden rakes and square shovels if you have them. We are also collecting native seeds for propagation of many of the rarer plants, most of which are not available commercially.
To form a work party, please contact GPRC headquarters at info@gprc.org or 817-838-9022.
|
Green Jobs in wildlands restoration
Green Jobs in wildlands restoration is the missing sector of the Green Collar Economy that nobody is talking about. Please add your voice in calling for new Green Jobs for workers to rebuild our natural infrastructure, the living, breathing ecosystems that give us life. Native prairies sequester carbon, intercept storm runoff, filter water, recharge groundwater, help clean the air, and more. These are called ecosystem services. |
Donations and volunteers are needed!
Please Join Us, Please Donate and Please Volunteer
Financial support, skills, tools, equipment, a good work truck and 16 passenger van, networking, social media, or simple volunteer work hours out in the field - it's time for all hands on deck to save the Prairies and Plains and help youth become leaders in Ecological Health.
Please contact GPRC headquarters at info@gprc.org or 817-838-9022 to volunteer or make a donation. You may also donate online by clicking here.
| |
