Effort considered to save Kan. tallgrass prairie

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it is considering a plan for voluntary conservation easements in 14 Kansas counties in an effort to save 1 million acres of tallgrass prairie.

Amy Thornburg, with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, said the plan is still being developed. If the program is enacted, land in the conservation easements could not be used for residential or commercial development. And it might govern the placement of wind-energy operations, she said.

"We want to end up with an intact tallgrass prairie. And although intact is a hard thing to describe, you know it when you see it," Thornburg said. "The tallgrass region includes ranching, fire, grazing and prairie chickens. They are all dependent on each other. If it wasn't for the ranching heritage of the area, we wouldn't have a prairie."

The project would encompass Butler, Chase, Chautauqua, Cowley, Geary, Greenwood, Elk, Lyon, Marion, Marshall, Morris, Pottawatomie, Riley and Wabaunsee counties.

Only 2 to 4 percent of the nation's prairie remains, and much of it is in the Flint Hills.

"The prairie is shrinking every day through invasion of trees, homes and roads," said Flint Hills rancher Bill Sproul. "I like to think of the easements as preservation of the horizon."

Vic Elam, legacy project coordinator for the Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge near Hartford, said if it is approved, the program would likely begin in 2011.

"It's a major step in promoting the Flint Hills as a treasured landscape," he said. "It is probably as much about creating awareness as putting the actual program in place. We want to make people aware of this land -- that it is the last great remaining tallgrass prairie."

The government is holding a series of meetings this week to gather comment about the proposal. The meetings -- including one in Wichita on Tuesday -- have drawn modest crowds, most of whom supported the Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area Initiative.

The Secretary of the Interior would have to approve purchases of conservation easements, which would be funded by money collected from offshore oil and gas leases.

The easements would also help encourage habitat for prairie chickens, which require open prairie and tallgrass to nest.

Once billed as the "Prairie Chicken Capital of the World," the birds' population has dropped in three decades by almost 90 percent on the Flint Hill's eastern edge and 50 percent in the rest of the Flint Hills, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks studies show.

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Information from: The Wichita Eagle, http://www.kansas.com