Curtis H. Freese, author of Back from the Collapse: American Prairie and the Restoration of Great Plains Wildlife, will present themes from his new book during a webinar hosted by the Great Plains Conservation Network to discuss the mission to restore biodiversity and health to the Great Plains. The webinar takes place on June 28, 2023 at 12 p.m. MDT via Zoom (register below).
Event description from Great Plains Conservation Network:
Twenty-three years ago, an eclectic group of conservationists and scientists launched two initiatives that today have a large and growing influence on Great Plains conservation: 1) NPCN, the predecessor to GPCN, and 2), a vision and initial planning by NPCN that led to the creation of American Prairie with the mission of assembling, with the 1.1-million-acre C.M. Russell Refuge as an anchor, a 3.2-million-acre grassland reserve in northeast Montana. Thirty-seven land purchases and a half million acres later, American Prairie is halfway toward meeting that long-term goal.
Curt Freese, a participant at the Bozeman meeting and co-founder of American Prairie, will kick off his presentation on June 28 by recounting some of that early history as he introduces us to his new book, Back from the Collapse. Following the layout of his book, Curt will first discuss the influential factors that led to the participants’ bold proposal to “go big” in proposing the American Prairie-Russell Refuge protected area.
He will take us on a quick historical jaunt, from deep geologic time to Euro-American settlement and Native American persecution, that have buffeted the landscape, its peoples, and its biodiversity for millennia. The presentation will then delve into the core of the book—the population collapses of 24 species of wildlife in the region, the collapses’ effects on biodiversity, what is required to restore the populations, and what full recovery might look like on the 3.2-million-acre protected area.
To stop ongoing population collapses and to comprehensively restore Great Plains biodiversity, we need to build a series of million-acre-plus reserves across the entire region. Doing so will require the same audacious thinking that 23 years ago led the founders of NPCN/GPCN to launch the American Prairie project.
The presentation will be 30–35 minutes in order to leave plenty of time for a lively discussion among participants.
UNP blog 