Great Plains Restoration Council “Serving our Youth, Protecting our Prairie Earth.”
Great Plains Restoration Council “Serving our Youth, Protecting our Prairie Earth.”
Great Plains Restoration Council is headquartered in Fort Worth, TX.
GPRC's Plains Youth InterACTION program operates in all two states (TX and SD) and functions as the solid framework underlying all of GPRC's on-the-ground prairie wilderness recovery projects. Our youth, through customized Ecological Health principles and action, advance their own leadership and technical skills while producing measurable, tangible ecosystem protections and public education, advocacy and community health.
Focus: Healing Ourselves through Healing the Earth. GPRC blends social work with ecological recovery and protection.
Fort Worth Prairie Park Initiative: 2,000+ acres. Save the last virgin tallgrass prairie of the unique and highly endangered Fort Worth Prairie ecosystem, which is classified as G1/G2 (Globally imperiled.) Build a system of core reserves and, where possible, connect them through ecological corridors out to the Western Cross Timbers.
Cynthia Ann Parker Wilderness: new project in West Texas. Continue enhancing strong rural-urbanl cross cultural relationship in this exciting new 12,000 acre+ Reserve, where wild buffalo and other native wildlife will be brought back and allowed to roam completely unmanaged, Dark Skies will be protected, and a new local sustainable economy will be built around wilderness recovery, wildlife protection, nature tourism, conservation biology, green design, education, research and more. Potential for significant acreage expansion.
GPRC's South Dakota office is operated entirely by Oglala Lakota residents.
Oglala Prairie Preserve: Joint project between GPRC and Wildlands Restoration Corporation has purchased 4,600 acres directly adjacent to the North Unit of Badlands National Park. Working to open up 6.5 mile boundary between our property and the Park so the two ecologically connect. Ultimate goal is to help the National Park Service acquire this land and fold it officially into the Park.
Million Acre Project: Overarching, multi-organizational, long-term effort anchored on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and expanding outward, geared toward ultimately tying together and restoring one million acres of wild buffalo plains and badlands, encompassing a.) reservation lands, b.) individual fee-simple lands from willing sellers, c.) Buffalo Gap National Grassland, and d.) Badlands National Park. Just north of the reservation, help protect the prairie dog ecosystem and our nation's most successful black-footed ferret reintroduction effort from being destroyed by those who are working to poison this rare ecosystem within the Conata Basin on Buffalo Gap National Grassland, which should be upgraded to National Park or National Wildlife Refuge status and protections.
GPRC Partnership with Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation: On Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, GPRC and Thunder Valley CDC (TVCDC) share mutual Ecological Health goals of bringing buffalo, antelope, prairie dogs and other native wildlife back and building healthy sustainable communities. We jointly run the Youth InterACTION leadership development program. GPRC is working to acquire and restore a new, several thousand acre former cattle ranch (fee land) that has excellent connectivity to the South Unit of Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota. Next to it, Thunder Valley CDC is working to build, near the road, on 200 already degraded areas, one of the greenest communities on the Great Plains. Its centerpiece will be a state-of-the-art solar-powered wellness center complete with swimming pool, basketball court, gym, cultural space, and more. This new community will help Oglala Lakota folks build financial equity, healthier living conditions and much healthier lives, while serving as an Oglala-led Ecological Health education lab where youth and adults relearn and reconnect with the natural world, their culture, and their place within it. Thunder Valley will also be a language lab, front-edge community meeting place for the exchange and development of new ideas, a headquarters for new prairie wilderness restoration and protection, and a sustainable ecological economy model for Tribal residents in all 9 Districts on the Reservation. Community Meeting House is just completed.
