The National Park Service has unveiled plans to restore up to 4,000 acres of grasslands in 37 national parks across 15 eastern states.
According to the NPS, grasslands are among the most imperiled ecosystems in North America, as 62% of the North American grassland biome, which once spanned around three-quarters of a million square miles, has already been lost.
To combat that loss of biodiversity, the NPS will work with project cooperators at Austin Peay State University's Southeastern Grasslands Institute to evaluate the needs of each park and then begin removing invasive species and tailoring a custom seed mix with native plants for each site.
The project is expected to come with many benefits, environmental and otherwise.
"This … project will expand the range and connectivity of native grasslands across the eastern U.S., restore biodiversity and critical ecosystem functions, reduce pesticide use, benefit people and wildlife, and create employment opportunities for diverse early career youth," the NPS said on its website.
The project will be funded by $7.5 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, $3.04 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and a $1 million grant from the National Park Foundation (the National Park Service's nonprofit wing that handles donations).
As it restores the grasslands, the National Park Service is uploading tons of photos to its website showing the progress of several different sites. So far, the photos are all pre-restoration, so check back to hopefully see more thriving ecosystems full of tons of native plants, pollinators, and wildlife in the future.
Projects like this one show that, although massive harm has already been done to many ecosystems by human activity — pollution, overdevelopment, and rising temperatures — it is not too late to save or restore parts of these ecosystems that have been lost.
Undertaking those efforts will, of course, require money — and luckily, the National Park Foundation just received the single largest donation in its history, an even $100 million from the Indianapolis-based foundation Lilly Endowment Inc.
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