Houston's Prairie Culture - An Ocean of Waving Green

“Many of Houston’s residents don’t realize that the prairie and Houstonians have a shared history,” said Jaime González, KPC community conservation director. “Some of the first jobs in Houston consisted of cutting up pieces of the prairie and selling it. The initial buyers were people with the grit and gumption to farm and ranch the prairie, giving rise to Houstonians’ reputation for optimism, hard work and success.”

González said that this success story should not be surprising. Humans everywhere and throughout history have used ecosystems to get what they need to prosper. He said: “For our region, the major ecosystem was the coastal prairie and at one time it must have looked vast and unlimited to serve our purposes.” With only a limited amount of it left, the major issue facing Houstonians today and in the future is how the remaining portion of our prairie can be saved while reaping the benefits it can still provide.

Just as the immigrant farmers and the native populations before them, KPC founders discovered agriculture operations were integral to their conservancy’s mission. Said Sam Reese, manager of the Warren Ranch, one of the largest remaining working cattle ranches on the Gulf Coast prairie: “If you catch somebody that is 70-plus years old who has some memory of the way things used to be, their perception of our prairie is much different than most people that grew up here in current times. To old-timers, the prairie meant agricultural opportunity mostly done with nature in mind.”

At KPC, what Reese and his colleagues are doing demonstrates the benefits of a more natural form of agriculture. They have shown that natural farming and ranching can often be more economical than using many of the non-native methods associated with conventional farming that were attempted here in more recent decades.

According to Reese: “First and foremost, we are running cattle on leased conservancy land: We are both looking to make money. KPC money is used to help fund prairie acquisition, restoration, outreach and education. We also realize that the prairie existed and thrived for millennia due to the existence and movements of large ruminant animals like the bison, and the presence of wild fire that regularly disturbed the prairie ground. These are things that naturally stimulated plant diversity, a healthy prairie and as a result attracted wildlife. Today, we use our cattle do the same thing American Bison did for centuries and use controlled fires to stimulate both nature and agriculture.”

Wesley Newman, KPC’s conservation director, discussed the organization’s outreach efforts. “Our agricultural operations show local farmers and ranchers more natural and sustainable ways to work the land. Our events also bring in the public, especially schoolchildren, so that they can see the prairie and its agricultural legacy.”

A consistent message from both Reese and Newman is that many Houstonians today really don’t understand much about the prairie or prairie agriculture. When schoolchildren come out to KPC, staff and volunteers often use guided tours and demonstrations to help recon nect them with their prairie heritage through the products they know and that the prairie can generate.

They agree that rebuilding our city’s prairie culture requires a linkage between the prairie, farming and the things kids enjoy on a daily basis. Once city-raised kids come and spend time on the prairie, they have what KPC staffers call their “light blub moments” where they start to understand what food and fiber crops are, and that the livestock they see grazing on the prairie are really “Fajitas on the Hoof.” There are also many people—kids and adults alike—who don’t know why there is a Katy Rice Harvest Festival. Many people who go to the festival have never seen rice grow. They don’t know what it looks like and that rice growing was once a major endeavor on the Katy prairie.

Through KPC outreach, many area farmers now recognize the effectiveness of native methods. As an example, many native grasses once re-established are more robust than many of the “improved” grasses of foreign origin that were brought here by well-intentioned but misguided people with a plan to aid agriculture. The truth is that native grasses make good feed and don’t need extensive use of fertilizer, and their deep root systems make these grasses drought tolerant, holding moisture from rain that would otherwise just be runoff.

“The question going forward is how we can save the prairie that is left and learn how to demonstrate its usefulness and value,” González said. “The prairie may be a very ancient thing but we need to remember that it still has relevance for our modern society. Prairie lands and green spaces offer Houstonians modern benefits such as flood mitigation, carbon capture, minimizing city heat island effects and recreational opportunities.” All of those “address real problems for our increasingly urbanized region. They offer tangible returns on the investment if made in conserving the remaining prairie lands we have.”

KPC Executive Director Mary Anne Piacentini described how KPC’s mandate started, evolved and what it could become in the future. “Our organization started in 1992, and during 1994 hosted a Conference on the Katy Prairie, where a group of environmental, scientific and business leaders came together to explore how to protect the Katy Prairie. The biologists and other scientists recommended protecting between 30,000 and 60,000 acres of Katy Prairie to ensure adequate land for the wildlife that depended on the prairie. Today, KPC owns nearly 14,000 acres of the 20,000 acres of its conserved lands. Going forward we hope to work even more closely with community partners and private landowners to save more land— land that will be privately owned and permanently conserved. These lands will continue to be used by the landowners for hunting, bird watching, farming or outdoors enjoyment.”