The innovative model for building American Prairie Reserve calls for stitching together three million acres of existing public lands using private lands purchased from willing sellers.

Unlike the creation of national parks through government action, American Prairie Reserve is connecting large swaths of fragmented public lands through the strategic purchase of private lands.

Biologists have determined that a prairie would need to be around 5,000 square miles in size (roughly 3.2 million acres) in order to be a fully functioning ecosystem complete with migration corridors and all native wildlife. By building on existing protected lands, the Reserve can buy a relatively small amount of land and still achieve landscape-scale results. Using the American Prairie Reserve model, a patchwork of ownership transforms into a seamless prairie ecosystem.

When these fragmented public and private lands are connected, the Reserve will provide a continuous land area collaboratively managed for wildlife and recreation, the largest of its kind in the Lower 48 states.

Since 2004, American Prairie Reserve has completed 31 transactions to build our habitat base of 419,625 acres.

Of this total: