Saving Texas Prairies and Grasslands

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Hi y'all, I'm Johanna Nuding, joined today by my blood, soul, and soil sister Crystal at day two of the Southern Family Farmers and Food Systems Conference. Welcome to the show.

So excited to be here on the second day of this conference and having more enlightening conversations about all things regenerative agriculture.

That'sright. And we have Andy Olson with usright now. He is a stewardship specialist at the Native Prairies Association of Texas. And before we were talking about conservation easements and what families can do to safeguard their land and make sure it stays in agricultural production or just not sold to the highest bidder.

And so this conversation with Andy is going to build on that. Andy, I'd love for you to just share a little bit of your background with us to get us started.

Thanks. And thanks for having me on. So I've been in Texas a little over a year, or a couple years. Time flies in a beautiful place, and I've met a lot of great people here, but I'm originally from Iowa, so a Yankee.

I grew up in Central Iowa, very rural. Being a part of a land trust is very much just, I wasn't very familiar with them before I got a job here, but it just clicked instantly with the changes I've constantly seen, and especially the Tallgrass Prairie, which we share a large part of Texas, Central Texas, and all the way in Iowa where I'm from is Tallgrass Prairie, or it used to be.

It's very imperiled, so it's very central to my upbringing and what I do today. So my educational background isn't in conservation or natural resources, it is in history. I have a bachelor's degree from the University of Northern Iowa, and then a master's degree in cultural resource management from the Colorado State University, with a focus on public lands.

And then I ended up taking a job back at the University of Northern Iowa for the Tallgrass Prairie Center. Beautiful people, really smart. Always got to plug them, and they taught me pretty much everything I know. Probably not enough though, so not to put all my problems on my issues or my shortcomings on them by any means.

So, and with that, I work primarily with the Conservation Reserve Program, specifically Prairie Strips, if anybody's familiar with that. Basically, you pay people to put prairie on the edges of cultivated row crops. So that is corn and soybean country up there, different compared to down here, for sure.

And I also had the chance to work on restoration projects, converting a little bit of that corn and soybean back to prairie. And then taking this job down here, my role is primarily taking care of our fee-simple properties.

We have 11 across the state, and that's restoration and working on remnant prairies and trying to take care of them. And I guess that's my short little intro.

Allright. Well, let's start off by talking about the state of Texas prairies and grasslands.

Yeah, so they're imperiled by any account. So especially if you're talking like a remnant prairie with 300 species like it used to be, those are exceptionally rare and hard to find. We own one in Falls County. It's only five acres.

We own another one in urban Houston, near Pasadena Deer Park Prairie. It's 50 acres. So they're exceptionally rare to be in such pristine quality. There's larger tracks around. Katy Prairie comes to mind. And then, and one of the beautiful things I found in Texas is you have ranchers, farmers, they have native grasses on their land.

So there's a gradient to what we'd call like, you know, remnant populations of species or like a true remnant prairie. And they're all worth saving. And even if, you know, it's just a little bit of little bluestem in the pasture or there's none, people willing to reintroduce more natives and that sort of thing.

So what would make something, you know, the ideal prairie situation? We talk about, you know, we were just discussing with Fred Morales, we have some native grasses coming back in the land that we're working and, you know, we get excited about that.

There may be a couple of species, but in the fullest broad spectrum of what a prairie is, what are you looking at species-wise and kind of paint a picture of that for us?

Well, I think the ideal is anything that we can still have on the landscape. But beyond that is really a functioning ecosystem with, you have a lot of warm season grasses, so a lot of grasses composition, it's for ground nesting birds, that sort of thing.

And then forbs, our pollinators are very imperiled. We hear a lot about monarchs. So they require a specific plant, milkweed, to survive, but they also need nectar from a whole bunch of different forbs, you know, purple coneflower, all that sort of thing.

And really our focus is, and recommend as people is make it as diverse as possible, but the reality of what is ideal is all land dependent and landowner based. And a couple of our conservation easement that we hold on their land, you know, they graze it.

And maybe it's a lot of switchgrass, but that's awesome. It's functioning as habitat for wildlife and it's fitting into their, you know, getting money off the land, working the land too. So, but in a broader sense, you know, the remnant prairie, I mean, you can't really even get to that level.

That's why they're so important that they're lost or trying to keep the ones that we do have, because at a certain level, they are unrecreatable to what they once were. But getting a semblance of that functionally is possible and, you know, get 50, 60 species out there, that sort of thing.

Nice. So I know, you know, you're not an encyclopedia, Andy, but do you know some of those stats around that? Like how much of Texas is prairie and grassland now versus what it was?

Yeah, so the common number thrown around is either one or two percent is still prairie, still prairie left. Talking about the tall grass prairie, like true tall grass prairie, go and find a remnant, it's one tenth of one percent.

So we're talking remarkably, remarkably small amounts of, you know, the ecosystem itself is gone from what it was. So, but we can create kind of a patchwork of that and try and bring some of that back. But luckily here in Texas, we have a lot of grazing land left and people willing to graze natives.

So in terms of what's left, it's a fluctuating number that, you know, who knows the exact number, but generally about one to two percent around. So certainly not enough.

Yeah. And what's the goal? Because, you know, we're trying to do better, get landowners and anyone involved in these sorts of things. Where are we wanting to go to?

Oh, that's.

What's attainable? What's attainable?

Oh, well, we should go back to 10%. How about that?

Allright.

So is that attainable? Who knows?

That's allright. I like goals, Andy. I'm a type A. Give me a good goal.

In truth, a realistic achievable goal is probably stasis, is keeping a similar amount to what we have now in the face of all the pressures that we have from urban sprawl to, you know, losing better functioning native grasslands to invasive species and that sort of thing.

I don't think row crops are a huge driverright now, but in the future maybe they will be, you know, different crops, different climate. And then, you know, data centers, all that stuff, solar farms, there's ways to keep it functional as a grassland with some of those things, but sometimes that's not what is actually happening out there on the landscape.

Yeah. So let's talk about that. The things that landowners can do to preserve and revitalize these prairies and grasslands. Because what you just mentioned, like the solar farms, the wind farms, when we're driving home to the ranch, they're just hundreds of acres of these things.

And I can see that, man, if they could just plant something under these things, like gray sheep through them, something to just hold the water in. I was driving home from California and had just crossed over the border from New Mexico into Texas, and a torrential downpour cameright when I was around Brownfield.

And there's so many wind turbines. I'm driving and all of a sudden it looked like I was about to drive into a lake and slamming on my brakes as I'm driving 85 or 90 miles an hour. And it was, I mean, within 10 minutes, the entire road was completely flooded because there was nothing to keep that water on this area where all those wind turbines are.

So what can landowners who are like, look, I had to do this, we needed the money. So what can they do to mitigate that problem?

Gotcha. So the, I mean, the simplest thing to do is just plant native warm season grasses. They're far superior in terms of water infiltration than basically anything else. They're adapted to do this, adapted to the landscape and that sort of thing.

And I'm not overly familiar with windmills and all that stuff and what you can and can't do. But, you know, especially in the panhandle you're talking, there's a lot of row cropping going on, that sort of thing. We have a remnant prairie there in Mitchell County, and we got some rain recently, and you drive around and those fields are eroded and losing topsoil.

And, you know, a place where you're keeping in all perennial grasses, no soil movement whatsoever. So, and that doesn't mean we're not going to grow any row crops or just convert it all into something else, but considering, and it's a phrase that's always used up north in corn country, but farm the best and leave the rest.

Don't follow that logic by any means. It's what, 80% corn, but, you know, the same applies down here too and anywhere really. Perennial vegetation is going to solve a lot of those issues that we encounter.

I love it. I have a similar saying that says, do your best and bless the rest. So we'll do that. So is it possible to take that land that is being used for these alternative energy solutions and create a prairie ecosystem in that?

For sure. People are doing that. We haven't worked overly, you know, that much with that sort of thing, but certainly under solar rays, at a minimum, just planting your basic prairie mix, you know, going to Native American seed and putting some black one prairie mix in there, things like that definitely help in the long term,right?

It's still, it's not going to be ideal habitat necessarily, but you're having this multiple uses, you're doing something rather than just, anything's better than mowing under these arrays,right? So that's where I fall on that sort of thing. And people see native seed and they're like, oh, it's expensive, all this stuff.

One time, it's a one-time fee for putting seed down and it'll keep maintain itself, you know, do some disturbance and stuff. And there's management issues with being under a solar array or, you know, something you can't access with fire, for example, and that sort of thing.

Okay. So you mentioned one of the things people doing row crops and then planting this native prairie mix on the turn rows or whatever. Are these things that are being subsidized for people to do this kind of work?

Yeah, so I mentioned Prairie Strips earlier, that is a part of the Conservation Reserve Program, which is a USDA program you can go and get cost share. The biggest cost share for that is basically a rental for those acres that you aren't farming.

The origins of CRP come from the soil bank essentially, where pay people, let it rest, and eventually that evolved to, well, let's plant some switchgrass or let's plant some, you know, originally it was a lot of non-native grasses, but now it's native grasses for the most part.

And back in Iowa, that payment can be as high as when they had some issues with the program, $300 an acre, more realistically 150, you know, that sort of thing. Just depends on the crops and the rental payments of the area and stuff like that.

And you mentioned that in Iowa, is it the same in Texas?

So.

Around 150?

It's different in every state. So I can't, I haven't been too familiar with that. And they'll implement different sorts of programs. Again, each state is way different with what they prioritize and what they don't. Iowa, it's a much more money being spent on it just because of the erosion issues and the prices and the intensity.

There's also a thing called grassland CRP, which is more prevalent down here in Texas and like the Great Plains and whatnot. So.

So when we're talking about the ecosystem of these grasslands and prairies, you know, it is cover and habitation for wildlife, but then also we need flowering plants for our pollinators. You know, what is the, I guess, best case when things are lookingright?

What does this ecosystem look like?

Yeah, the best case is, you know, largely treeless. It's full of grasses and forbs. Ideally, all throughout the year, spring, summer, fall, down here in Texas throughout all, because there's not really that different in the seasons. Essentially food for the pollinators,right?

So in one of the huge issues with pollinators isn't just obviously just habitat in general, but there's certainly a distinct lack of spring flowering forbs out there. And part of that comes from with our limitations to restore what's been lost, but also just, you know, management practices and all that sort of thing.

So really the ideal landscape is just more perennial vegetation that is native, which will help with keeping out some of the non-native grasses. And not to say there's certainly a role for non-native grasses like Johnson grass. I battle it.

It's an enemy of mine and our stuff, but we're not grazing with cows at leastright now. And there's certainly continued to be a role for that and stuff. So, and you know, just having a grassland is, you know, for habitat certainly better than like a row crop cornfield or something.

So yeah, really in the ideal landscape and realistic now is a patchwork. There's, you know, it's kind of like we build these trails for people, these rail trails. We can get around from San Marcos to Austin to San Antonio.

Animals need the same thing,right? They need connectivity. They need, you know, stuff to eat, all that good stuff.

So what is Native Prairies Association of Texas? What is your role in bringing this back to our state?

So we are, and really one of the primary ways in which we try and achieve this is we are a certified land trust. And I know y'all talked about land trust yesterday. So essentially it's a voluntary agreement where a landowner says, I want this protected in perpetuity.

I don't want a data center here. I don't want a windmill here. So we come to you, you put up money to do it. We work with donated easements. And so in exchange, they give up their rights essentially to develop.

You can think about your rights as a bundle of sticks. I wonder if this metaphor came up already. It's the easiest way to do it. So one is like hunting, one is access, one is water. And then one of these is that those development rights, which essentially you're either selling or giving away.

And typically that's about 30% of the land's value, but that's not, that's just ballpark. It changes for each individual piece of land. And if you donate it, you can use it to deduct your taxes over a certain period of time, which is one of the reasons why people do it.

So why would you work with a land trust for that? So we are obligated to monitor that and enforce that in perpetuity. And your conservation easement doesn't go away when you pass away or you give it to your heir.

That sticks with the land forever and forever's a long time. And we're primarily working with landowners who they have some remnant vegetation or natural prairie already, or that's what they want to shift to and they're kind of already started that journey.

And, but we're open to all sorts of landowners. We're not closed off that way. It's just our focus and working with those people.

Okay, so when we talked yesterday to Darren with Texas Agricultural Land Trust, he said, always meet with more than one organization that does a land trust. So here you are. You're number two for us. So what sets you apart with this focus on prairies and grassland from other land trusts?

Do you offer more in that regard?

We do. So, and sort of the other hat Native Prairie Association wears is we're a member-based chapter organization. So really you're going to enter a conservation easement with us. You can be a part of that community, a bunch of like-minded people, people who are doing either what you're doing already or have done what you want to do restoration-wise, who care about native prairie more than just, you know, open space, which is all fantastic and we're all here for.

But sort of the specific issues that come with that, you're going to have a group who can share those problems with you and staff who understand. We've been different properties. We're working on that ourselves. We own 11 properties across the state, which I already mentioned.

So really to me, that's the biggest reason why you'd want to work with us compared to other land trusts is that focus on and that passion for native prairies is powerful. And it's always great when we get together.

We have like a board retreat and chapter's members, you know, kind of a stay overnight and just the conversations and camaraderie can go a long ways and make them feel like you're not alone because, man, protecting prairie is not exactly college football,right?

Yeah, that'sright. You're on the prairie, you could be feeling very alone. So you mentioned on these 11 properties when we started, you called them fee-simple properties. What does that mean?

Oh, that's just the, you know, legal use term for property we own. So you own it in fee simple, own it in simple. Like you own property in simple. It's the same thing.

Yeah, I've never heard that in my life.

It's land trust jargon I just started using. So we can blame our executive director, Amber Arsenault, for that one. And one other thing I want to mention about why you'd want to work with us is we do tend to work with smaller acreage land holdings.

So many land trusts, they kind of have a minimum acreage to work with. Because at the end of the day, it's like with anything,right? Scaling, we were going to work on a 500 acre property. It's about the same amount of work as five acres,right?

So there's an aspect of a financial there. And also we want remnant prairie. There's not going to be a gigantic tract of it. So over time we've, we work with smaller tracts for landowners, which I think is important because I will try and save anything.

Obviously we don't agree to take every property, but you know, it's all worthwhile.

Yeah. So you talked about the bundle of sticks analogy. If someone chooses to work with y'all, you're not saying this is what we're doing. It's just that's an option and y'all just happen to be experts in it. Somebody can still do row crop farming and ranching and all the other things.

It's not saying we're turning all of our land into prairie.

Correct. Yeah. And a great example of this, there's a beautiful restored prairie up in, they're not in Falls County. They're near Temple and, you know, 200 some acres restored. It's beautiful. Put a conservation easement. They still have row cropping on their best ground.

So that sort of thing. And you, and fundamentally you retain your agricultural rights. Obviously we're not going to want you to tear up a prairie that you already restored and we don't expect anybody to do that, but you still retain those rights legally.

And same with hunting and access. I don't have free access to come to your property. The public will not. You could write that into an easement, but that is, we write easements to go with what the landowner wants in the future as well.

So, and you retain those rights fundamentally. And in terms of management and all that stuff, we can make recommendations, but that's not required by any means. I can go out to a property and say, hey, you have a little bit of a brush issue, some encroachment, and I recommend go out, cut some trees, that sort of thing.

Maybe do a burn. That is completely up to them to whether or not they want to do that. And we can try and help them find resources to do so, but it's not, we're not managing people. We're not out to get people for violations or anything like that.

So I think you started kind of describing what I'm going to ask next, but your role as a stewardship specialist, what would you do for us as landowners?

Yeah, so we go and monitor each property every year. I'll call up the landowners, say, hey, want to come out in October? And ideally they, what usually happens, they drive me around in the buggy and they talk my ear off and it's the best day, best day ever to just explore their property and they'll talk to me about it.

I'll take a bunch of pictures and there's a specific software for land trust to use and basically photo points. We do random photo points. Other people do set spots so you can look at over time. And just looking for, basically we're looking for, did you build a brand new shed and not tell us and put it in the wrong spot.

And to backtrack a little bit on development rights, in easements we'll write in building envelopes and the size will be based on the size of the property. So I say you can't develop, these basically we're reserving thatright in limited capacity.

So if you are looking to pass this on to your kids or grandkids and they want to build a different house, you can still reserve theright to do that just in a limited capacity.

Yeah, just not a neighborhood.

Yeah, exactly.

You can have a barn dominium for your hunters.

Yeah, and those monitoring visits, yeah, that's basically what they are. We will enforce the conservation easement if violations happen, but it's usually just a conversation. How are things going? You know, talk about fire, talk about access to that, resources.

And a lot of times it's just like a good conversation with folks.

So what does it look like if someone's in violation and you enforce it? What does that look like?

That is a great question. And I have not had to enforce any violations yet. But I believe it starts with basically a legal letter saying you're in violation. And then from there, usually it works itself out. In my experience, they're very rare and that sort of thing.

Nobody's going to jail.

I don't think so. But I mean, the bigger issue with violations would probably be the tax man coming around with conservation easements, but that's not these sorts of violations.

Got it.

Sorry, I don't have a good

violation story.

Listen, I love it. I don't want a violation story. We got plenty of those. So the fact that you don't really have to, you haven't experienced that is like, I love to hear that. Thank you. So the three things that when we were emailing back and forth, you know, your role or NPAT's role as a land trust is land stewardship, prairie restoration, and assisting landowners.

If there's anything that we haven't asked you around that that you think's really important to kind of help paint this picture, please do that.

You know, I really think the biggest thing is, I mentioned it already, is if you're somebody interested in prairie, you have land, you want to start a journey or have questions, really the most powerful part about NPAT and why I wanted to work here is the volunteer aspect.

It's our 40th anniversary. It was started by volunteers in the '80s and up until very recently, there wasn't much staff and people have put their hearts and souls into this organization. I'm eternally grateful to all the work they've done and opportunity for me and then just opportunity for everybody else.

There's so much knowledge among our members and our board members and chapter members that just come and be a part of it. Our Fayette chapter hosts a bunch of events. Wackelon chapter, they all have beautiful events. You can come meet people and just try and be a part of this community.

At the end of the day, the only way we're going to preserve more of Texas is if more people know about it. You know, I'm from Iowa, like I mentioned, I didn't learn, I didn't know Iowa was tall grass prairie until in college somebody handed me a book.

So that sort of aha moment is vital in being a part of that.

Well, and we're talking about landowners, but you know, there are a lot of people that listen that care about these things and they don't own land of their own. So what can someone who's just passionate about this, what can they do?

Well, one thing they could do, I host volunteer workdays down at Dowell Ranch in South Austin and some of our other properties. I'd love to have people out and help out there. But other than that, you know, anything can help.

One plant on your balcony in your apartment. I live in an apartment. I have one sad plant. I saw a queen butterfly there once. I was like, perfect. Those small things help a lot and now the awareness part is big too.

But I understand the frustration with me not owning land and wanting to make a change. And I don't own land. I never will. But yeah, there's the smaller ways. And there's other organizations that are more outreach focused, that sort of thing.

Talk about native plants. NPSOT, the Native Plant Society of Texas, fantastic organization, similar sorts of people. They're focused very much on plants and seed and all that sort of thing. Master Naturalist Program, huge in here in Texas, really, really important.

So anything helps at the end of the day.

So if people want to learn more, I know they can go to texasprairie.org. Well, Andy, we appreciate who you are and what you do. Thanks for being here. I know you weren't born in Texas, but you got here as fast as you could.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for being here.

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