Those easements protect the Flint Hills by precluding the types of development which threaten the region’s ecology, as well as its ranching culture. Over the past decade, many Flint Hills ranchers have exercised a bold vision to conserve the tallgrass prairie, by granting easements on their lands. It’s absolutely a top priority to conserve this special place.” “Less than four percent of the tallgrass prairie remains in America, and most of that-more than two-thirds-lies within the Flint Hills. “America’s tallgrass prairie ecosystem is the most altered major habitat type in the country, in terms of acres lost,” said Alan Pollom, director of the Kansas chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Today, invasive plants, tree encroachment, ranchettes and energy development pose serious threats to this beautiful landscape. It’s a place where people connect with the prairie and its wildness. The tallgrass prairie’s strength and resilience has been acquired through eons of fire, grazing, and extreme temperature and precipitation. The Flint Hills offer dramatically rolling panoramas of breeze-bent grasses, wild flowers, and unbounded skies-a grand grassland wilderness where prairie chickens, bison, seldom-seen birds, rare fishes, and a host of other wild creatures find bountiful habitats. This four-million-acre landscape comprises nearly 80 percent of what’s left of the world’s tallgrass prairie only 4 percent of its historic expanse remains unplowed, undeveloped, and relatively unchanged. The tallgrass prairie of eastern Kansas, known as the Flint Hills, is vast, breathtakingly wild, and ecologically rich.
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