Restoring The Vistas and Gems Of The Eastern Tallgrass Prairie & Big Rivers LCC

The Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers Landscape Conservation Cooperative (ETPBR LCC) is dedicated to addressing the conservation challenges in a heavily modified and fragmented landscape stretching across the nation’s heartland across 11 states from Ohio west to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska and north through Iowa into Minnesota. Highly productive soils support economic and social interests including crops, livestock, manufacturing, energy, growing urban centers and struggling small towns—and potentially rich ecosystems. Sedimentation, channelization and flooding influences the midsection of several continental river systems, affecting resources from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico and calling for integrated agroecology, watershed and floodplain management. A few large restoration sites convey the historic vistas created by sweeping tallgrass prairie and rolling rivers. Scattered pockets of remnant prairie and free-flowing river segments are highly valued where they exist. While the highway view suggests corn and beans from one end to the other, the region is not homogenous. Precipitation, water laws, migration, human population density, and agricultural commodities differ across the region. Challenges span climate change, invasives, declining upland grasslands, nutrient runoff, and water demands. The LCC has identified four focal areas: 1) Prairie Restoration; 2) River Restoration; 3) Agroecology Conservation Practices; and 4) Urban Watershed Management. The LCC works with stakeholders to fill gaps in pragmatic science to guide conservation decisions that will restore the vistas and gems of the tallgrass prairie and big river ecosystems while supporting economically significant production, recreation, and quality of life resources.