What We Do
- Photo by Emma Balunek
Our mission is to protect and restore the Southern Plains: America’s Serengeti.
Despite being one of the largest and most unique biomes in the world, shortgrass prairie is also among the most threatened habitats in North America, with 50% already lost due to human development.
Just 150 years ago, immense herds of bison millions-strong roamed the Southern Plains, prairie dog colonies spanned hundreds of square miles, and pronghorn and elk teemed across the shortgrass prairie. We want this biodiversity and abundant wildlife back.
Pillar 01
Gaining Ground
We will continue to expand our network of protected prairie preserves through land acquisition and holding conservation easements on partners’ land. Our current land base in southeastern Colorado consists of more than 50,000 acres owned in fee and another 10,000 acres of land under conservation easement. Ultimately, we hope to create corridors for wildlife that support a natural processes such as animal migration throughout the entire Southern Plains region.
The Southern Plains Land Trust (SPLT) was founded on the principle that one of the best ways to protect prairie wildlife is to simply buy the land under their feet. Our mission is to create and protect a network of shortgrass prairie preserves, which ensure a future for all native animals and plants. Our main program seeks to do just this, through the purchase of land or the acquisition of conservation easements.
We give priority to properties that are adjacent or near to our existing nature preserves and have high quality native grasslands (or the potential for the land to heal and return to native prairie). SPLT will also consider properties that are close to key public lands or part of conservation initiatives on private land.
To learn more about the lands we protect, go to Our Preserves.
We are working hard to restore the prairie to its original state. Native grasses get a chance to flourish and wildlife gets space to roam. We strongly believe in the concept of ‘Rewilding’ - a progressive approach to conservation where it's all about letting nature take care of itself. We enable natural processes to shape the plains and the streams and repair degraded landscapes. Through rewilding, wildlife's natural rhythms create wilder, more biodiverse habitats.
In 2017, we began low-tech process based stream restoration (LTPBR) efforts on our preserves. By adding small structures that do not stop the water flow, but only slow it down, we let natural processes help with restoring the riparian zones. Since then, our stream restoration efforts have expanded to include planting native cottonwoods and willows, installing beaver dam analogs, conducting controlled burns on tumbleweed-choked springs, and removing stock dams to restore the disrupted hydrology of the landscape. Currently, we are working to restore a self-sustaining beaver (Castor canadensis) population to our preserves. Our restoration efforts have been supported by the Biophilia Foundation, Colorado Open Lands, Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado Water Trust, Colorado Youth Conservation Corps, Defenders of Wildlife, Dr. Richard McLellan, Ducks Unlimited, Great Outdoors Colorado, National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife, and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado.
Pillar 02
Rewilding
Pillar 03
Biodiversity Conservation
A wonderful array of wildlife and plants reside on the Southern Plains Land Trust preserves, and we do our best to keep them safe and healthy. Our thriving prairie dog colonies have enabled us to reintroduce the endangered black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), America’s most threatened mammal. Our growing bison herd keeps our grassland heterogenous, which benefits many different plant species, as well as grassland birds and insects!
Southern Plains Land Trust manages its preserves for native flora and fauna. By providing safe refuge for all native animals, we are helping to restore the native ecosystems. We are also returning key missing pieces of the ecosystem, including bison, which we first reintroduced to Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve in 2015, as well as the endangered black-footed ferret, which was first reintroduced to Heartland in 2022.
Another exciting restoration effort at SPLT is our collaboration with neighbors of Heartland Ranch to modify or remove fences across more than 90,000 acres to make the landscape more accessible to pronghorn and other wildlife. This effort is funded through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's RESTORE Colorado.
The Southern Plains belong to us all. SPLT is invested in the local communities of southeast Colorado and in providing opportunities for education and employment in the conservation space. Environmental education is key in keeping the prairie protected for generations to come and that’s why we are expanding our program for local school groups.
We are building an exciting new education program, and partnering with local schools and recreation groups to teach kids about the importance of preserving the prairie and its wildlife. The children spend a day on the prairie learning about wildlife and plant adaptations.
Each year, the land trust also reaches out to local communities through outreach events, such as the Snow Goose Festival, Colorado Native Plant Society events, and Prairie Dog Day festivities. We also partner with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado and the local chapter of the Mile High Youth Corps at our wildlife refuges to improve the streams by installing low-tech natural rock structures to slow the flow of this flashy stream system and give cottonwoods and willows a chance to take root.
We invite new partnerships that help us further prairie education, particularly among underserved communities. Read more about Community Engagement at SPLT here.
Pillar 04
Outreach
Pillar 05
Science & Monitoring
In order to restore and protect the prairie to the best of our ability, we use a science-based approach. Our preserves have a minimal amount of human disturbance and are therefore a unique opportunity to study grasslands. It is necessary to know how much carbon is sequestered in a healthy ecosystem, and how the population of black-footed ferrets is growing - this will help many other conservation projects throughout the world.
Email info@southernplains.org for scientific data and study site inquiries.
EN 
ES