2011 Year End Prairies & People Report + Please support GPRC

"Serving our Youth, Protecting our Prairie Earth"

Dear Friend of Great Plains Restoration Council,

Giving thanks for being able to give back ... and for the personal awareness to be thankful even in the midst of all the serious problems facing our world ... is a blessing in itself.

I am writing you because I live in thanks and service. For many of us, this is our life's work not only because we have seen so much suffering, sorrow and loss on the Plains (and in the world in general), but also incredible moments of beauty, exhilaration and hope through good hard work out here in America's prairie region. Thank you for contributing to this work of renewal of life and health for people and prairies.

Your support of Great Plains Restoration Council (GPRC) and the Ecological Health movement helps many struggling young people and native animals of America's shattered prairies and plains. As 2011 draws to a close, please consider donating to Great Plains Restoration Council. We can't continue this important work without you.

These are your parks. GPRC's strategic prairie parks and preserves are designed to not only help prairie dogs, bison, monarch butterflies, grassland nesting birds, other native wildlife, and protect important watersheds, but also provide training and new Green Jobs for damaged youth and young adults. We do all our ecological work through GPRC's two programs Plains Youth InterACTION™ and Restoration Not Incarceration™.

Furthermore, since few people alive have ever walked inside a wild prairie, GPRC's public awareness campaigns connect America to its forgotten land. GPRC is ramping up national public education efforts through media, speaking tours across the country, and on-the-ground work. There is no conservation without culture and constituency. This is GPRC's niche.

Serving our Youth, Protecting our Prairie Earth is becoming a people movement. Few people know about the killing contests and poisoning of black-tailed prairie dogs in the Western Plains, or the unspeakable annihilation of wild buffalo that still has not been rectified, or that on the Gulf Coast there is less than 1% left of the original native Coastal Prairie. But when they do, they want to be a part of creating new health, so that 'history is not over'. Lastly, few people yet know about the exciting medical and social work advances of ecological therapy to help people heal themselves. That means there is so much potential for the future.

GPRC's young people come from ALL colors, cultures and communities. Working to take care of body and Earth as one, and learning to live like a watershed, we know that "by taking care of others, we take care of ourselves." Many young people often feel like they are at the end of their lives with no hope. Youth develop critical thinking, stamina, wellness, resilience and more, and go from crisis to stabilization to pathways to thriving, just like the damaged prairies we work on. Prairies provide refuge for people, and people provide refuge for prairies through restoration.

America's prairies and youth need you.

Accompanying this letter is an overview of some of the exciting accomplishments GPRC completed in 2011. We're in this Ecological Health movement for the long haul, so that in the future, the public's health and interest is so culturally intertwined with protecting the Earth that never again can such damage and loss occur.

Please donate whatever you can. With foundation giving drying up, we need you now more than ever. GPRC operates on a streamlined budget with low overhead, so that we can devote most of our resources to the program work. For your convenience, an envelope is provided to send a check, or you may donate online at GPRC.org, including through our new online fundraising Indiegogo campaign.

2012 will be an exciting year, especially with the kick-off of our new 20,000 acre refuge on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. With your help, young people and America's long-suffering prairie animals have more of a chance to make it into the future.

Best wishes and health for the holiday season, from all of us out here in the land of sun, wind, grass and blue sky. No matter what the challenges, we can love life through working for health and strength.

Jarid Headshot

Thanks so much for caring.

Jarid Manos

Founder & CEO / Great Plains Restoration Council

If you have already received this report and appeal in the mail, please forward to a friend. Thanks for your support.

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2011 Accomplishments

Great Plains Restoration Council

Esteban Park: Houston Coastal Prairie Demonstration: a.) Employed four full-time homeless ex-offenders in their early 20's from Bread of Life homeless shelter / St. John's Downtown United Methodist Church. b.) Completed the first phase of coastal prairie restoration on the brand new Esteban Park. This is a GPRC demonstration Park with new wetland designed for high educational Ecological Health value to the public that can quickly inform many people of the larger movement. The new Park is a joint project with St. John's Downtown. Exceeding expectations, a pair of grassland nesting birds built a nest in the back of the park the first year, due to restoration work done.

Fort Worth Prairie Park: Completed the acquisition and protection of the creek and part of the bison range. A partnership was formed with Dixon Water Foundation, who acquired the lease on the rest of the land from the State in order to help continue protecting this important tallgrass/mixed grass prairie ecosystem from development while permanent options are sought. Another successful year was marked in the bison reintroduction that took place a few years back. The buffalo now live entirely as native wildlife inside the Park. Work began with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to connect the Fort Worth Prairie Park ecologically to an adjacent additional 900 acres of important Corps land.

Saltwater Country: New coastal prairie refuge on the Gulf of Mexico. GPRC signed an MOU with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin coastal prairie restoration work in 2012 on a 20,000 acre Gulf of Mexico refuge at the mouth of the Trinity River as it empties into Galveston Bay. Ancient sites from (now extinct) Karankawa Indians exist. The land, when it is restored, will help better protect this nationally significant estuary. It is also the ancestral home of bison, red wolves, whooping cranes and more.

New Mexico/Southern High Plains: Worked with 13,000 acre Galisteo Basin Preserve in Santa Fe County to successfully reintroduce a Gunnison's prairie dog colony. Plans are for first black-tailed prairie dog colony reintroduction in 2012, as well as first bison reintroduction. Youth and young adults from Northern New Mexico will participate. Site locations already identified. Brought Paula Martin, of Prairie Ecosystems, Inc. on board. Paula is the nation's longest-serving prairie dog field reintroduction expert. Success in 2012 will mean that Galisteo Basin may be the only area where 2 native species of prairie dogs (Gunnison's and black-tailed prairie dogs), pronghorn antelope, and bison again share the ecosystem, which includes an ecotone. *An ecotone is "a transition area between two biomes but different patches of the landscape, such as forest and grassland". In Galisteo's case, the Southern High Plains short grass prairie connects up to pinyon-juniper foothills and desert grasslands of the Southern Rocky Mountains.

South Dakota: The expansion of Badlands National Park with our 4,600 acre Oglala Prairie Preserve, a joint project with Wildlands Restoration Corporation, is on track. Bison, ferrets, pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, eagles, Oglala Lakota heritage sites, and more.

Appointed to the Relevancy Committee of the National Park Service/Obama Administration: In August, 2011, Jarid Manos, founder & CEO of GPRC, was one of 15 people nationwide appointed to the new Relevancy Committee, for the National Park Service, an initiative by the Obama administration to help America's priceless National Parks and diverse communities connect better with each other.

Sharing the Journey Tour: Embarked on the national Sharing the Journey tour, which brought the story of the Great Plains and how GPRC's work fosters the intersection of social and ecological struggles and health to universities, churches, jails, media, conferences, organizations, and more. The Tour continues. (For inquiries, please contact GPRC or 832-598-4772.)

Restoration Not Incarceration: Completed design of the Trainer's Manual for Restoration Not Incarceration, and worked with Texas State University/School of Social Work's Dr. Christine Norton, a pioneer in eco-psychotherapy, on first formal studies of this new GPRC program.

Plains Youth InterACTION: Currently working with Texas Christian University (TCU) / Environmental Studies Institute to develop and apply formal research on restoration ecology through the work on the Fort Worth Prairie Park.

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Green Jobs: Veterans hire in 2012: American veterans who have served this country face a 12% unemployment rate. As GPRC hires up its 2012 Restoration Not Incarceration work crew, we would like to fill the supervisor/enforcement position with a veteran from the recent wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you would like to sponsor the hiring of a United States Veteran from the Armed Forces in 2012, please contact us directly at 832-598-4772. Thank you.

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