The Great Plains Grassland Fund is a public-private grant fund that helps protect and sustainably manage the native grasslands of the Great Plains by pairing land protection strategies with technical and financial assistance for ranchers. The program aims to permanently conserve high-value grasslands at risk of conversion through easements and other durable land protection tools; support ranchers and communities with resources to improve grazing management, maintain working lands, and keep grasslands intact; and build a durable funding mechanism that leverages public and private capital, supports qualified implementation partners, and advances community-led conservation projects across the region.
Partners
The grasslands of the Great Plains are among the most threatened and least protected ecosystems in North America. According to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2024 Plowprint Report, approximately 1.9 million acres of Great Plains grassland were converted to cropland in 2022 alone, and only about 55 percent of the region’s grasslands remain intact. Once native grassland is plowed, the loss is effectively permanent—the soil health, wildlife habitat, water-filtering capacity, and grazing value it provided cannot be readily restored.
This conversion is driven largely by economic pressure on the families who own and steward these lands. When ranching cannot compete with the returns from row-crop conversion or development, grassland is lost—along with the rural communities and beef supply chains it sustains. The Great Plains Grassland Fund is designed to address these challenges by giving ranchers tools to protect and sustainably manage their working lands and keep them in grass.
The Great Plains Grassland Fund will build on community-based, rancher-led efforts and invest in durable, flexible, and integrated land protection and management strategies designed to reduce the likelihood of grassland conversion of high conservation value landscapes. In addition to placing voluntary conservation easements to protect ranchlands at high risk of conversion, this initiative will leverage funding and programs that provide ranchers with technical and financial resources to help implement new practices and maintain successful operations.
The Fund will operate as a funding mechanism to facilitate capital aggregation and disbursement to strategically protect grasslands across the Great Plains. The primary objectives for this Fund include:
- Permanently protect land using conservation easements in areas with high conservation value, high conversion risk, and strong community buy-in
- Leverage technical and financial resources to improve grazing land management in and around the areas under protection status
- Engage local communities in identifying sites for protection and planning conservation and grazing land management
- Measure and report key progress indicators for conversion, biodiversity, water and rancher livelihoods
Due Dates
| Due Date | Name |
|---|---|
| Full proposal due |
| Program fact sheet | Download the PDF |
Director, Rocky Mountain Regional Office
Program Director, Grasslands and Mountain West
Manager, Rocky Mountain Regional Programs
Manager, Central Region Working Lands
