Why American Prairie doesn't plan to lobby Congress for a new national park

A bold plan is underway to preserve America's grasslands. The nonprofit "American Prairie" says it wants to create 5,000 square miles of intact grasslands through partnerships between public and private landowners. If successful, it would become the largest nature reserve in the lower 48 states. 

American Prairie explains that the cornerstone parcel of the project is the 1.1-million-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. The federally protected land is managed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. American Prairie has expanded its footprint around the reserve by purchasing private ranches in the area.

This Sunday on 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker reported from Montana where he met some those most affected by American Prairie's project, including local ranchers who have campaigned against the non-profit and the organization's CEO, Alison Fox. Fox told 60 Minutes last year the organization does not plan to lobby congress to create a 64th national park.

"As a nation, we are not setting aside big tracks of land anymore for national parks," Fox said. And we believe that a public private partnership with a private entity, a nonprofit entity owning a chunk of land, working with…the other public agency landowners in the region is the right way to create this park in the 21st century. And to build an endowment to support it in perpetuity as well, so that we know it will be well taken care of in the long run."

Unlike many national parks, American Prairie plans a light footprint and try to restore the land to the condition it was in when Lewis and Clark explored the area.

"We have visitors, and tourists, and hunters already coming onto this land," Fox said to Whitaker. "There are thousands of people who are staying in our three huts and two campgrounds, who are out, enjoying this landscape. Now, this is very remote. There aren't paved roads…And any infrastructure that we build, any visitor use we invite, we want to balance that with the needs of wildlife in the ecosystem so that we're not loving a place to death."

That responsibility falls in part on the shoulders of Daniel Kinka. The senior wildlife biologist at American Prairie, Kinka is working help the organization "rewild" the land. He said an abundance of bison roaming the land will be vital to restoring the ecosystem.

"Bison are what we call an ecosystem engineer," Kinka told Whitaker last year. "It means, they basically build habitat for other species. There's hundreds of species that rely on the work that bison do as an ecological actor for their own survival."

As for a timeline until the project is completed, Fox told 60 Minutes that it will likely decades before the organization's vision comes to fruition.

You can watch Bill Whitaker's full report on American Prairie below. 

The video above was originally published on October 23, 2022. It was produced by Keith Zubrow and edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.