The last week in February, a group of landowners gathered in Roosevelt County, New Mexico to watch fire management teams burn 1,700 acres of land. The event was part of a prescribed burn in the area, meant to mitigate the effects of wildfires while also creating ideal habitat for Lesser Prairie-Chicken and other grassland birds […]

With about 23,000 playas in the Southern High Plains of Texas, the state is undoubtedly an important place for playa restoration and conservation. But, despite their abundance and ability to support aquifer recharge, they often go unnoticed or underappreciated. As a solution to this, a number of conservation organizations came together in 2015 to form […]

In 2013, Matt Hough wrote his first North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant proposal while working as an intern at Ducks Unlimited (DU) in Nebraska. Now, seven years later, as manager of conservation programs for Kansas at DU, writing NAWCA grants is an integral part of his everyday work. Projects that Hough and the […]

A new enterprise to address declining aquifer levels will soon be available in Wichita and Greeley counties. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is investing $1.4 million in a partner-driven Groundwater Recharge and Sustainability Project (GRASP) to support local communities through its Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). The project has an additional $1.5 million in […]

The executive director of Ranchland Trust of Kansas, PLJV’s recent capacity grant awardee, took time recently to discuss the organization’s project goals, what she hopes will come from the work, and her thoughts on capacity grants. (The interview has been edited for length and clarity.) PLJV: What made you think Ranchland Trust of Kansas (RTK) […]

PLJV’s 2019 annual report is now available, and we’d like to thank all of our partners! In addition to developing new tools for the benefit of our partnership and regional communities, such as an interactive playa map and landowner films, PLJV continued to work with partners on Playa Conservation Initiatives in Texas, New Mexico and […]

These days, when Matt Poole and his team go out to survey the land at Matador Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in west Texas, they’re pretty happy with what they see. Where these areas of the Rolling Plains of Texas used to be overrun with invasive plants like mesquite, they are now seeing it return back […]

A group of precision agriculture students in Kansas are taking part in the conversation of how best to restore playas and use new technology to advance existing efforts. Educating the next generation of producers about playas is an important step to ensuring the continued conservation of these wetlands and the recharge value to the Ogallala […]

The National Audubon Society recently released a report, North American Grasslands and Birds, that evaluates the sensitivity of grassland bird species to climate change and identifies which grasslands are strongholds against both climate change and land use conversion and which are vulnerable to those processes. PLJV collaborated on the chapter addressing the southern Great Plains […]

Pictured (left to right): Jeff Raasch, TPWD; Mike Carter, PLJV; Mrs. Laura Bush; Bob Locke, Ducks Unlimited; and Don Kahl, TPWD. In October, the Texas Playa Conservation Initiative was one of six conservation projects featured at the first annual Conservation Wrangler Summit and Celebration hosted by Texan by Nature, an organization founded by Former First […]