In announcing a $165 million gift for preservation of coastal land in California, the tech-industry Dangermond family said that they were trying to set an example for other rich people like themselves. But they also suggested that non-billionaires, through much smaller scale community and neighborhood efforts could cumulatively make a large environmental and livability difference.
The previous two installments in this conservation series gave illustrations of local, statewide, and regional efforts: first in Europe, and then in several coastal American states: Hawaii, Oregon, and Maine.
Now a report from Nebraska, on a major prairie-conservation effort underway there. This comes from William Whitney, executive director of the Prairie Plains Resource Institute in Aurora:
With much interest I read your recent piece in The Atlantic online about the Dangermond Preserve, the follow-up email from Europe, along with your interest in finding more examples of community based conservation work from across the country. I am founder and director of a land trust called Prairie Plains Resource Institute in Aurora, NE.
As an isolated independent nonprofit in a town of 4,500 people we have somehow succeeded where simply surviving is difficult enough—since 1980—in community based grassland preservation, ecological restoration and education.
Prairie Plains Resource Institute owns eight gorgeous prairie natural areas in Nebraska; acquiring two of these properties included significant participation from local communities. For example, our most recent preserve, the 650-acre Sherman Ranch along the Platte River, was purchased with substantial financial support from our under-300 membership; also including major support from six local foundations (unusual for this type of project in a rural agricultural area); from Nebraska Environmental Trust; and a large national conservation organization, Ducks Unlimited.
