The Fort Worth Prairie Park Initiative
“We still have a chance to save a sizeable remnant of the smaller, endangered Fort Worth Prairie,” said a rep of the Council. “The Fort Worth Prairie was the nexus of prairie life abundance.”
According to the Council, today with the bulldozers rolling, exhaust pipes belching, and the concrete plants 24 hours a day, the remaining Fort Worth prairies are being reduced to rubble and the new name may soon be “Where the Concrete Never Ends.”
“When you experience such a beautiful endangered place as you walk along a living, breathing landscape and 200 million-year-old fossils just lying there in the soil with insects singing in the grass like a buzzing symphony, you realize that this land has supported a very long continuous experience of life for tens of millions of years,” states Council’s literature. “And to reduce what’s left to rubble in order to build McMansions that will last maybe a few years sounds like an attack against earth and future generations.”
The Council is calling for the city to re-adopt its historic moniker as “Queen City of the Prairie” and embrace the cultural identity and leadership to protect “our Prairie Earth.”
“All the great Western cities, from Denver to Phoenix to Los Angeles, all of whom are facing severe urban sprawl like Fort Worth, have, as part of their cultural identity, created sizeable reserve parks protecting expanses of the native ecosystem,” reads the Council’s website. “The Great Plains Restoration Council is calling for the City of Fort Worth to establish a world-class urban conservation Prairie Park, a Fort Worth Prairie Park, of no less than 20,000 contiguous acres.”
According to research with a combination of local, private, and federal Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars, as well as conservation easements, this is an entirely doable project, and we must act now before the bulldozers crush everything.
“In a testament to Fort Worth’s new millennial community spirit, we are asking business owners, corporations, private individuals, our city and state government, and NGOs like the Council to work together to establish this urban prairie wilderness,” the Council’s rep stated in an email. “Texas made the money off the prairie, producing cotton, cattle, and carbons which generated immense cash wealth.”
The Council is also advocating for permanent protection of remaining Fort Worth Prairie land anywhere, wherever possible, of any size, as well as for the creation of inner city prairie parks as established green spaces where the local community can participate in prairie restoration, planting of native wildflowers, painting of murals, picnic shades; etc.
