The Environment

Land, Water, People

In The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust Deborah Epstein Popper and Frank Popper concluded in 1987 that the population and agricultural development of the plains had been a mistake that required a daring proposal for dealing with an inevitable disaster. Writing from New Jersey, the Poppers set off an ongoing debate about the fate of the middle of America and consequently most of Nebraska. They claimed that depleted water supplies, declining land values, and the resulting widespread exodus of farmers from the plains would lead to the almost total depopulation of the region over the next generation. Responding to their own bleak prognosis with several ideas for federal action, the Poppers concluded that "the most intriguing alternative would be to restore large parts of the Plains to their pre-White condition, to make them again the commons the settlers found in the nineteenth century." That idea was summarized by the phrase "buffalo commons."

Visiting Nebraska in 1990 and again in 1993, the Poppers pointed out that the 1990 census showed that depopulation on the plains continued. Fifty of fifty-two Nebraska counties proposed as part of a buffalo commons had lost population in the previous decade. Challenged from the audience, Frank Popper responded, "We are not telling you how to plan the future of the Great Plains! We are just giving you the statistics and describing what you are doing to yourselves."

Depopulation continued. The 2000 decennial census reported another decline in the state's population, following a trend evident in every census since 1930, as more people left the state than moved into it. Population increased as deaths declined relative to births, but emigration undercut natural increase, leaving only modest net gains.

Many Nebraskans responded angrily and defensively to the Poppers and their proposals. They felt themselves and earlier generations disparaged and insulted for the efforts they had made to adapt the plains to agriculture through the planting of trees, the creation of windbreaks, and the use of other strategies. Others, however, applauded the Poppers for raising national awareness about environmental issues critical to the future of the plains. The proposals also produced responses that were more than emotional. The University of Nebraska's Center for Sustainable Agricultural Systems, along with its Sustainable Agriculture Mentor Program, as well as the Washington DC–based Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE), came into being because of concerns raised by the Poppers, among others.

In addition to SARE the National Drought Mitigation Center, housed in the University of Nebraska's School of Natural Resources beginning in 1995, began to study drought, develop strategies to lessen its impact on agriculture, and serve as a national clearinghouse for drought information. The same year the National Buffalo Association, chartered in 1966, and the American Bison Association, founded in 1975, joined forces to form the National Bison Association "to promote all facets of production, preservation and marketing of bison." Every seven years since 1993 U.S. and Canadian buffalo and bison groups have organized an International Bison Conference to showcase the benefits of producing and eating bison.

The Poppers continued their research and even became associate fellows at the University of Nebraska's Center for Great Plains Studies. Revisiting Nebraska in 2000, they spoke at the center's international symposium, "Bison: The Past, Present, and Future of the Great Plains." The conference drew a broad cross-section of scholars from agronomy, ecology, history, and economics, along with Native Americans, artists, and bison producers, all concerned with the future of the Great Plains.

Although the Poppers' seminal article and the discussions and actions that followed raised awareness of critical environmental and ecological issues for plains residents, such issues were far from new. They were part of a long-standing debate about whether agriculture could flourish and populations thrive within this vast region known as the Great Plains. To a large extent the settlement by Euro-Americans of the northern Great Plains and the area that would become Nebraska was questioned from the beginning of the United States' acquisition of the area from France in 1803. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson, whose principal concern in 1803 was the acquisition of the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River, saw no great promise in the vast trans-Mississippi region and believed it had been thrown into the bargain by France simply to increase the purchase price.

Factors that were not apparent are equally important to understanding early assessments of the land. Clearly a considerable portion of Nebraska was treeless, and large areas were without running streams. Yet not all of the state lacked these necessities. Nor was the area of the plains that would become Nebraska devoid of human habitation. Many observers failed to grasp that for centuries men and women had made the plains their home, adapting to its conditions in ingenious and resourceful ways.

Native Americans, including ancestors of historic tribes on the plains, understood the critical importance of water. In part water had a spiritual component for many of these early inhabitants. Ancestors of the historic Pawnees, for example, viewed water as the fourth creation, after earth, human life itself, and trees. Yet there was also an economic relationship between water and the community. Archaeologists have discovered that changes in the amount of precipitation determined when and where communities moved their villages in an ongoing adaptation to the plains environment. So too for Euro-Americans, settlement of the plains would require experimentation and adjustment, the success of which would come to depend on the creativity and adaptability of people to...