- Making of A Million is made possible by H-E-B.

You can learn more about their sustainability efforts at OurTexasOurFuture.com.

(bugs chirp) (birds sing) (bugs sing) - Look out, what do you see?

A field, a pasture?

An empty treeless patch of nothing?

Well, there's no such thing as "just a field" in Texas and they're certainly not empty.

This is a grassland, one of the most biodiverse, precious, and necessary ecosystems in Texas.

And once you understand it, well, you'll never look at grass the same again.

(birds warble) From the coast to the west, Texas covers over 170 million acres.

It's home to tens of thousands of native plants and animals and some of the most beautiful, diverse lands in the country, lands that are changing fast.

I'm Chet Garner, let's take a trip with the Nature Conservancy in Texas to visit the people and places who've helped protect more than 1 million acres of Lone Star lands, both for our generation and the ones to come.

(peaceful music plays) So when you say grass, most of us just think of the chore of mowing it, or rather the frustration when it dies in our yard and gets all patchy.

But today, I'm not talking about St.

Augustine or even Bermuda, but rather an entire ecosystem that most of us pay little or no attention to.

I'm talking about grasslands and truthfully, I know very little about 'em.

And so I thought we would start this sort of grass class by visiting the most endangered ecosystem in North America, the Blackland Prairie.

(peaceful music plays) (grass rustles) I think like at first glance, I'm amazed at how many different plants I'm looking at.

You think of a prairie just being endless grasses and there's grasses.

There's also, you know, flowers and like ferns, like, that's probably not the right word.

(laughs) Give me an idea of what we're looking at.

'Cause I kind of feel a bit lost.

- Well, this is an old growth prairie.

This has never been plowed.

And this is a lot what our prairies look like in this region, in the Blackland Prairie ecoregion.

Looking backwards, this is exactly what they would've found, is a pretty wild landscape.

- Yeah, that's the word.

It's a lot wilder than I would've thought.

- Yes.

- Clymer Meadow is one of the last large pieces of unplowed, unfarmed Blackland Prairie.

And if you rewind the clock, Texas was covered in grasslands.

Spanish explorers report endless grasses taller than the belly of a horse.

The Blackland Prairie stretched from the Red River all the way to San Antonio.

Today, less than 1% remains intact.

So if we were looking at an animal, this would be an endangered species that we see around this- - Absolutely.

There's only 750 contiguous acres.

This is recognized as one of the largest pieces remaining, really uncommon to see it in this condition.

- And I guess the obvious question, why, like, what makes this worth protecting?

Because I think, to the untrained eye, it just looks like a pasture.

- It does, and driving by, this is something that most of the time just looks like another field, another overgrown field.

Well, we see the rarity and the sensitivity of this ecosystem as really important, but it's biodiversity at the core.

There are a number of different species, as I said, both animal, but then plant.

Here, we have about 300.

This is really something that is not only a view into the past, but it is something that is very special for everything that it hosts.

- If you were to drop a hula hoop anywhere, you'd find layers upon layers of different plants, just within that small circle.

Above and around us are birds, mammals, and, yes, bugs.

Hey, they're Texans too.

Brandon, can you, can we stop real quick?

And you can point out- - Absolutely.

- Just sort of what we're looking at?

- Sure.

So a lot of this grass is Eastern Gamagrass which is one of our really important, dominant- - That's the tall stuff.

- Native grasses, yes.

- You've got that, what- - This is sensitive-briar.

And if I touch these leaves, they actually respond by closing.

- Oh, there you go.

- This is Rubus trivialis.

This is one of our Dewberries, the Southern Dewberry.

It makes fruit.

- Yeah, oh, I've eaten my share of dewberries in the country.

- They're delicious.

Another thing we have hiding in here is Englemann's thistle, one of our native thistles.

And this thatch is sometimes hiding some other things right at the soil.

This is something that, I don't even know what that is.

(Chet laughs) It's hard to tell when they're really young.

- Yeah.

- We can see beneath it too, an Eastern Gamagrass seed.

That's not one that we dropped, but rather it had already fallen.

It hit the soil just as it's supposed to and it'll sit there until- - Yeah.

- The conditions are right for germination.

- And the reason it's called Blackland Prairie, right, I mean that dark soil.

- That's exactly right, yes.

- As you see, grasslands aren't as basic as you might have imagined.

Across Texas, there are seven distinct ecoregions, historically known for their grasslands.

The Blackland Prairie, which used to cover 12 million acres, the Coastal Prairie, which covered another 9 million from Baffin Bay to the Louisiana border, the South Texas Plains, Edwards Plateau Grasslands, Rolling Plains on up to the High Plains, then to the Trans-Pecos Grasslands out west.

The Nature Conservancy protects nine different preserves in Texas, specifically for grassland conservation.

And that's not to mention conservation easements with numerous private landowners who care about conserving our native prairies.

Okay, so there's scientific reasons, there's historic reasons, but what happens to us as a society if we just lose all of our native grasslands?

- Well, that's a good question.

They play a lot of roles and our research shows that.

What these prairies do that is particularly special is they act as a sponge, they hold water.

They capture and hold water in a way that the lands surrounding it no longer do.

So the water that it eventually lets out is cleaner and it's a slow release.

- Grasslands are also critical for capturing and holding carbon.

They are truly the filters and storehouses that keep our entire planet healthy.

If a landowner has land that was previously agricultural, but they wanna sort of do their part, restore the grasslands, I mean, where do you even start?

- Well, identifying what's present is first and foremost, also understanding their goals.

It definitely takes a lot of time.

We see results sometimes a decade later from seed that's been- (Chet chuckles) Lying dormant in the soil.

- Kind of feels like watching the grass grow, huh?

- That's right.

(Chet laughs) We do a lot of watching the grass grow.

- Yeah.

The most threatened, least protected habitat on earth is a grassland.

I mean, that blows my mind.

And I'm starting to understand why.

I mean, when you look at a grassland, you can't immediately see the beauty and the benefit and all that it provides.

And so, well, right now, we're gonna head to a very different part of Texas to visit a very different sort of grassland and talk to one of Texas's foremost grassland experts.

(peaceful music plays) Sonia, we're standing in the middle of a coastal grassland.

- Exactly.

- This is incredibly different from the other ecoregion grasslands.

- Yeah, it sure is.

We got Bushy bluestem, gets really big.

You could see the seed fluff going- - Go forth.

- Go forth and multiply.

- Yeah, that's right.

- You might not see a lot of diversity right now, like with a lot of wildflower or anything, but if you look underneath here, there is a whole community of small mammals, of reptiles.

I mean, it's just like, it's just a city down there.

Yeah, and as we think of the northern Great Plains, so the Prairie Potholes, you know, in the Dakotas, if you think like, almost like a bookend, the Coastal Prairie is part of that large, expansive grassland.

That extended - Ah.

- From Mexico all the way up to Canada.

But it is the, you know, the most threatened biome we have.

The more we can do to conserve it, to learn from it, to see how to restore it, I think, is something we, you know, we take seriously here.

- Yeah.

(birds chatter) (bird warbles) - The Mad Island Marsh protects 7,000 acres of coastal prairie with grasslands, wetlands and some of the gator-iest bayous I've ever seen.

I think there is a common reaction that you go, oh, there's no trees out there.

Like, for some reason we equate trees with beauty, and trees are beautiful, but even the absence of trees, if you sort of know how to understand it and interpret it.

- So we love our trees but they can be invasive.

Will the trees eventually overtake?

Sure, but to maintain your functioning grasslands, you need to, you need to do some disturbance in there.

- Uh-huh.

It's kind of controversial to take out the oak trees to think like, no, this is supposed to be grasslands.

Get 'em out of here.

It's just a different way of thinking.

- It's a different way of thinking.

But, you know, I invite folks to come out and visit the grassland.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wait 'til you see it, wait 'til you see it.

- Wait 'til you see it, don't knock it 'til you've walked it.

- (laughs) I like that.

The animals of the grasslands are beautiful and fierce.

Coyotes, hawks, deer, all the way to the tiny mice that hide in the grasses' shade.

(mouse squeaks) Now we're gonna jump over to a private ranch working with the nature conservancy to protect one of the most endangered animals on the coastal prairie, the Attwater Prairie Chicken.

(chicken cries) - Chet, I'd really like to welcome you out here to the Refugio-Goliad Prairie Project area.

- All right, so this is it.

- Yeah, these are the prairie chicken pens, the acclimation pens for restoration of Attwater Prairie Chickens on the Gulf Coast Prairies.

- Believe it or not, I have never seen an Attwater Prairie Chicken.

- Today's your lucky day.

- In all likelihood, most people have never seen one of these.

And that's because this strange-looking bird nearly went extinct in the wild.

But this project is hoping to fix that.

(chicken keens) And today, we're getting to release some adolescent chickens back to the prairie.

Oh, we can go in?

- Yeah, oh, yeah.

- How many birds are in here?

- About 24, and this pen it's about 30 by 100.

- Okay.

- We don't want to flush 'em, but you can kind of see where they've already been hiding, like this little hole.

- Oh, I see that, yeah.

There's definitely a hole.

- A little hole right here.

- Any idea of how many birds are left in the wild?

- So there's a pretty high mortality rate because they are an R-selected species, they're a prey species.

- Yeah?

- Best guess is over, like in this area, over 150.

- Oh, that's not many.

- No, it isn't.

- Because I look, this is expansive.

- Yes, it is.

It's very hard to take a bird that's been captive-reared and then put it out in the wild and have it survive.

- Sure.

- And we've been successful with that.

So not only is it beneficial for the species, but it's beneficial for any other grouse species.

- Because if it's the Attwater Prairie Chicken today, it might be the... - Sage-grouse tomorrow.

- Tomorrow.

- It could be... - Montezuma quail.

- And lesser prairie chicken in the panhandle and things like that.

- Yeah, okay.

- Well, you guys really are, you're writing the textbook on how to do this.

- Well, somebody is.

- Yeah.

- It's a group effort, a partnership for sure.

(chicken cries) - Releasing these chickens isn't as easy as I thought, but considering all the things that want to eat them on the other side of this fence, well, I'm not sure I would wanna leave either.

(chicken cries) This is like the hardest Easter Egg hunt ever.

I mean, this animal is so well-camouflaged.

I don't even see it until I practically step on top of it.

I had two pop out from right between my boots.

That's how well-adapted this animal is to this prairie.

It's an Easter Egg hunt, but it's the chicken that hid the eggs, not a bunny.

And the chickens are the eggs.

(laughs) Get your head around that one.

Well, I'm super glad that this landowner is letting you guys repopulate this prairie with a species that should be here.

It was here before we got here.

- Yes, yes.

- It's pretty cool.

- Put endangered species on private lands.

- That's awesome.

- Yep.

- I know it's easier to rally behind protecting a bird than say grass because we love birds and beautiful birds like sandhill cranes and whooping cranes use this coastal prairie for habitat.

Countless bird species need grasslands as holdover stops for their epic migrations.

(birds sing) Hey, they can't migrate from parking lot to parking lot.

So without the grasslands, we won't have the birds.

Remember, all of nature is connected.

Interestingly, 90% of the birds that breed within the Great Plains over winter out west in the Chihuahuan Desert grasslands, which is where we're headed next.

Well, Kaylee, it looks like the grasslands just got a much needed drink.

- They did, absolutely.

- I mean, I've driven through this part of Texas before and it was every shade of brown.

- Crispy.

- But only brown.

- Yes.

(Chet and Kaylee laugh) - Like, as far as you can see, this is definitely not brown right now.

- No, it's not.

So this is a Chihuahuan Desert grassland.

- Okay.

- A short grass prairie out here, which is very different than the tall grass prairie that you saw before.

So you're seeing a mix of native grasses and forbs that are, the forbs are like a weed to us, any low-growing flowering plant.

Any other wild flowers are actually forbs.

And then we've got a mixture of native grasses out here as well.

So we've got prairie cone flower down here.

You're seeing some burrow grass, you see some grama grass.

- And nothing grows more than what, four foot high?

- Yeah, they're pretty, it's pretty shrubby, right?

- Yeah, I mean, right.

- No huge trees.

- This preserve covers 2,700 acres and stretches from the foothills of the Glass Mountains into the Marathon Basin.

What's interesting is that from the sky, it looks like the grass grows in waves and this banding allows the grasslands to catch and pool the water as it flows down from the mountains, both nourishing the grass and recharging the aquifer.

- And the bands actually migrate uphill over time.

- Oh, fascinating.

- So people think we should have a ton more grass here, but about this level of cover is actually a very healthy grassland for out here.

- So are a lot of the ranchers in the area on board with realizing, appreciating grasslands?

- Honestly, they have been doing it for longer than we have.

- Really?

- Yes, absolutely, so the private landowners out here, I would say paved the way for responsible ranch management out here because they're making a living off of their lands.

So they deeply care about their grasslands and the amazing diversity that it supports.

'Cause once you get out on it, you don't just see the plants that are diverse, but also the wildlife that are here too.

- All right, so anytime you're walking around a grassland or in West Texas, for that matter, you gotta keep your head on a swivel a little bit because you never know when you're gonna encounter one of these guys.

He's a western Diamondback.

I got just a few inches from his head.

We might have been making this trip about an emergency room visit if that had gone any different.

Wow, that was actually quite a beautiful snake.

Out west, grasslands are different.

You may see an elk in the distance or pronghorn running across the prairie.

Quail sit on fence posts as bobcats and badgers roam to find their next meal.

But one little guy that was long thought of as nothing more than a ground rat is finally earning its rightful respect.

(prairie dogs squeak) - Okay, welcome to Prairie Dog Town.

(Chet laughs) - Is it the whole town under our feet?

- Yeah, absolutely, so it even extends across the highway.

- That is cool, look, one, two, three.

- This is one of the largest still-intact colonies left.

On our property alone, it's only about 775 acres.

- Only?

- It's much bigger than that, yeah.

- What?

- Yep.

- So are these guys endangered or losing their habitat?

- So prairie dogs all across North America, they are in less than 1% of their native habitat that they used to have.

- Whoa.

- Also, these guys are super susceptible to plague.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

So it can actually come in and wipe out colonies of prairie dogs.

- Okay.

It's crazy to think but at one time in this county, it was illegal not to kill prairie dogs on your land.

But since then, we've realized they actually help the grasslands thrive.

- They're a keystone species within grasslands because these guys are actually mixing and aerating the soil as well as putting nutrients back into the soil by moving in them.

- Oh, cool.

- That actually helps with the grasslands.

Cattle will actually prefer areas of prairie dog towns in times with very little rain.

- You ever just come out here and feel like you're watching prairie dog TV?

- Oh my gosh, all the time.

- You know, pop a lawn chair.

- Love it, and the burrowing owls too, are out here too.

So, especially late April, early May, they're having babies then.

And the babies are actually coming to the surface.

- And they're even cuter than the- - They're so darn cute.

- Oh, man.

- They're so cute.

(prairie dog squeaks) - So I love how the Nature Conservancy forges partnerships with both groups and private landowners to find smart solutions to these common problems everyone's facing.

I mean, if you depend upon your land for your livelihood, well, then you have to care very deeply about keeping your land as healthy as possible.

And that often goes hand in hand with conservation practices.

And so, we're gonna visit a rancher in Northeast Texas who worked with the nature conservancy, not only to bring back grasslands but also the buffalo.

(bugs sing) - So this is what we call Pasture Six.

- Okay.

- Pasture Six is where the bison have been grazing at for two months now, they've been in here for a while and it's time to move 'em.

We'll move 'em down to Four and Five.

Which is down there- - Okay.

- By the house and the pasture right next to it.

- Theda is a bison rancher who understands the deep connection between grass and the livestock that feed on it.

- We do rotational grazing here.

- Okay.

- To help keep up with the native grassland, so we don't over graze our native grasses.

- Got it.

- And today is moving day for these guys.

- All right.

- So hopefully, we can get 'em out of all the ponds and get them moved.

- How do you move a bison?

(laughs) Long pause, all right.

This will be an adventure.

- You get that bison to move on its own.

(Chet laughs) (bison whuffs) - The bison want to eat today, so that's a good sign.

They're gonna follow us into the front pasture.

Oh, there, here they are, woo hoo!

(feed rustles) Currently Theda's herd is 20 bison strong.

But our grasses need them.

Historically, tens of millions of bison roamed Texas.

They were nature's lawnmowers and losing the massive herds has caused grasslands to transition into brush country.

- So that's why it's really important for your smaller ranchers to worry about the grasses, to try to return to native grasses, to try to worry about the ecosystem, improve the waterways, improve the soil health.

Things that big guys just don't have the luxury to do.

Our short term goal here is to be able to donate a starter herd, which is a bull and five cows to another rancher to get them started.

- That's awesome.

- With everything we do, being a Native American, I always try to make sure that it completes a circle, that if I've been blessed with something, I'm gonna bless somebody else.

- Theda comes from a Seminole and Creek native ancestry.

And to her, this is more than just raising a food source.

It's reconnecting her family and the land back to its original purpose, which is also the mission of the Tanka Fund.

- Our mission is to return buffalo to the lands, lives, and economies of native peoples.

- Oh, that's cool.

- Yeah.

So we look at this as a whole ecosystem.

You bring the buffalo back, that ecosystem comes back from the grasses to the animals, to the land.

So when you look at a land that has not had buffalo on it versus one where they're taking care of it with buffalo, you can see the big, the biodiversity from bringing the buffalo back on that land.

'Cause they're a keystone species, everything about these animals is made to regenerate this land.

I always say science has just now caught up with our practices.

(group laughs) - That's true, that's very true.

Rotational grazing is a critical tool in keeping grasslands healthy.

Another is to set them on fire.

(flames crackle) At almost every preserve the nature conservancy manages, they conduct prescribed burns to recreate the natural cycles of nature that we've lost.

Sonia, this feels like the surface of another planet, wow.

- It does look like a moonscape.

However, it's already coming to life.

We conducted this fire four or five days ago now.

Look at the spiderwebs.

- Ah.

- Look at how it's greening up.

- Spiderwebs all over us.

- I know and our neighbors, as you can see, are already continuing the prescribed fire.

- And the grassland likes being burnt like this?

- It does, so grasslands need a disturbance.

And fire is a natural disturbance.

It's a way to like set things back all at once.

- Would fires have happened historically out here?

- In our monsoon season, in the summers, a lot of lightning strikes, winter storms, we would get lightning strikes, those are all natural.

Also, you know, our Native Americans, they also set fire to the prairie.

- Mm.

- But the most important thing is that it really stimulates our native species.

- Okay.

- And it gives them that much more rigor and there's that much more space that they can also occupy.

- It seems counterintuitive to burn something you're trying to preserve, but the grass loves it.

- Before we did the fire, this was continuous cover.

Now you have all this space.

By the spring, we will have new clumps of forbs right in the middle, and look at all this space in between when before, there wasn't any real estate left to grow.

- Yeah.

- Because there was just shade.

- Yeah, it was all covered.

- And so now, we're gonna have more grasses, different species, and more forbs, and wildflowers coming in.

- I mean it looks, you know, it looks a little bit like devastation, but it's not, you know?

- No.

- It's hope.

- It definitely is hope.

All it is is just setting back succession.

We will be back here in 18 months potentially.

- So you'll have to burn this again in a year and a half?

- Yeah.

- So don't get too comfortable, grass.

(Sonia laughs) All right?

From every charred mound, new life springs up.

And from every seed harvested from a native field, our native grasses and flowers have a chance to reclaim a piece of Texas they lost.

And when we think of nature in Texas, we aren't quick to think of our grass, but it's one of the most critical parts of our state and our heritage.

It's where the buffalo roamed, it's where Cowboys rode the open range, which later gave us the rich soils that fed our crops.

Texas wouldn't be Texas without 'em.

And it's time we start protecting grasslands like we mean it.

- Making of A Million is made possible by H-E-B.

You can learn more about their sustainability efforts at OurTexasOurFuture.com.