Unexpected Diversity: North America's Tallgrass Prairies

Conservation Efforts

Many states and provinces have begun conservation efforts to preserve and/or reintroduce the tallgrass prairie that was once so abundant across the land. The Nature Conservancy is one organization that has partnered with state and federal agencies to assure that none of the remaining tallgrass prairie is destroyed by farming or development. Only four percent of the tallgrass prairie still remains, undeveloped, unplowed and unchanged in America. More than two-thirds of this four percent of undisturbed tallgrass prairie is found today within the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma. Here too is found the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, located 2 miles (3 kilometers) north of Strong City, Kan.