The Kansas City Star editorial board suggests a million acre national park in northwestern Kansas.
Kansas is vastly under-represented in national parkland, and can accurately be considered parkland poor today.
The prairie is the greatest long-term carbon sequestration landscape available, as the grasses take carbon from the atmosphere and bury it deep in the ground, where it stays to nurture plant growth.
A new national park would attract tourists. Europeans, in love with the romance of the American West, would be drawn to it, as would other international visitors and Americans. Parks of similar size and remoteness in Texas and North Dakota attract at least 300,000 visitors a year. With the central location of Kansas, it has the potential to attract more.
Tourism could grow into a lifeline for surrounding counties, all of which are struggling to find ways to keep native sons and daughters at home, but have largely failed to build enough industry or create enough jobs.
Grasslands are the world’s most endangered eco-system, and re-establishing a large patch is important to America’s natural and cultural heritage.
Buffalo Commons is an idea whose time has come.
Link via National Parks Traveler