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The LandScope America preview includes a tallgrass prairie map of the United States that shows the original area of the tallgrass prairies (before European settlement in the 1800’s) and the major known tallgrass prairie areas remaining.

The web site says: "Welcome to LandScope America, an exciting new online conservation resource. Planned for release in late 2008, this interactive website will bring together maps, data and stories about natural places and present them in highly dynamic and accessible formats. We hope the result will both inform and inspire conservation of America’s incomparable lands and waters. … LandScope America — a collaborative project of NatureServe and the National Geographic Society — is a new online resource for the land-protection community and the public."

Prairie Biotic Research, a Wisconsin nonprofit established in 2000 to foster biotic research in prairies, is funding a a Small Grants Program with grants up to $1,000 for the study of any grassland taxon in the USA.

To apply for a grant, contact Michael Anderson at Prairie Biotic Research, Inc., PO Box 5424, Madison, WI 53705, or by email at pbr-grants@tds.net for a 2008 Grant Application Form and instructions. 

Applications must be postmarked on or before January 3, 2008 to receive consideration.  Researchers who received PBR funding in 2007 are not eligible for 2008 funding.

Read this post for more information.

The City of Frisco is considering an prairie art installation entitled "Prairie Bells" by Bill and Mary Buchen of Son Arc, Inc as part of the Preston Road Phase 2 project.  The proposal includes landscaping with native prairie grasses and flowers, a "bell tree", and "a wind twister."

From the city’s project description: "Prairie Bells" celebrates the rolling tall grass Blackland prairie that the City of Frisco sprang from and commemorates each year since its founding in 1902.  …  Prairie habitats remain vital to Frisco’s future environment conservation as to its past.  Prairie Bells invites the public to explore the grasses and native plants surrounding the artwork.

For more information, see this story in the Pegasus News or read page 17 of the following city document.

Have fun and see tallgrass prairie at Houston area parks and preserves! 

The Houston Chronicle carried an article, "Get away from it all by heading to a park", that highlights several parks and preserves around Houston that include native tallgrass prairie: Brazos Bend State Park, Armand Bayou Nature Center, Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, and Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge.

See the Houston Chronicle article for more details!

The Nature Conservancy of Texas has purchased the 6,000-acre Fitzgerald Ranch in the High Plains of West Texas to protect habitat for lesser prairie chickens and other native wildlife found in the region. The Yoakum Dunes Project in the Texas High Plains will conserve 6,000 acres of shortgrass prairie.

See the Nature Conservancy press release and the Austin-American Statesman article for more information.

The energy bill currently in the U.S. Senate would require 21 billion gallons of biofuel from sources including prairie grasses by 2022.  Perhaps this will spur usage of diverse tallgrass prairie plantings for biofuel and carbon sequestration!

From a CNN article: 

"It also would rapidly ramp up the required production of ethanol, eventually to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase. At least 21 billion gallons must be from feedstock other than corn such as prairie grasses and wood chips."

Research at the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Chicago has found that native prairie plants and prairie soils hold more carbon than crop land and plants.

"Beyond growing crops like corn and soybeans, prairie soil is better than soils found in other parts of the United States at retaining carbon dioxide" said Roser Matamala, a terrestrial ecologist in Argonne’s Biosciences Division who was the lead researcher of the two projects that measured the intake and release of carbon dioxide of the different soils and plants.  Her research also found that native prairie grasses absorb much carbon dioxide than crop plants.

Read "Argonne, UIC researchers get the dirt on prairie soil" at anl.org for more information.

When: Saturday and Sunday, July 28th-29th
Where: Clay and Archer Counties, TX

Come see large amounts of native prairie in and around the Henrietta Prairie!  See native grasses, native flowers and other native plants, and probably grassland birds, butterflies, and other native pollinators.

The Henrietta Prairie region is the western part of the Cross Timbers and Prairies (Clay and Archer Counties) in a transition zone between the tallgrass prairies of the region and the mixed-grass prairies of the Rolling Plains.

Jim Edison says "this area looks like the Flint Hills [of Kansas/Oklahoma] in terms of scale" of the amount of native prairie that still exists, so it should be an impressive prairie trip for fans of native prairies, grassland birds, and native plants! (more…)

The 80th Texas Legislature has approved additional park funding.  Articles say TPWD got about 90% of the funding requested, but the way it was structured is not a long term funding fix.

Funds for new park acquisition are mostly restricted to a specific park near Fort Worth and for use by local and county governments for parks, which seems to preclude prairie conservation with the funds unless a local or county would conserve prairie in a park using the local grant funds.

Other articles about the increases funding:

• Tyler Morning Telegraph: Parks Department Happy With Legislature’s Budget
• Houston Chronicle: House bills nearly double state parks’ budget
• Environment Texas: Details on Parks Funding Victory
• B and B Blog: Parks funding: "a tremendous short-term victory", but long term is "unfinished business"