Saving Southeastern Grasslands celebrates five years, changes name to Southeastern Grasslands Institute

CLARKSVILLE, TN – The Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) is celebrating its fifth anniversary. As part of that celebration, SGI announced that it is changing its name from the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative to the Southeastern Grasslands Institute. However, its mission of saving the forgotten grasslands of the Southeast hasn’t changed.

On Oct. 5, 2018, SGI was officially formed as a branch of the Center of Excellence for Field Biology at Austin Peay State University. Its formation was made possible by a generous donation from the BAND Foundation.

“Grasslands in the Southeastern U.S. harbor vast amounts of biodiversity as compared to other ecosystems, yet they receive far less funding and conservation attention. We support the SGI because it is addressing this critical gap in the conservation landscape,” said Clark Mitchell, BAND Foundation trustee.

“APSU is proud to be SGI’s home and to see all of the valuable scientific research, conservation, restoration, and educational work they are doing to protect one of our nation’s fastest disappearing ecoregions,” said  APSU President Michael Licari.

Over the last five years, SGI has worked tirelessly to conserve, restore, and promote native grasslands throughout the Southeast. This work is critical because less than 1% of Southeastern grassland communities remain, and they are home to some of the most imperiled plants and animals, including monarch butterflies, American bumble bees, and northern bobwhites.

Senator Bill and Tracy Frist, longtime supporters of SGI, said they are excited to see the continuation of grassland conservation.

“Tracy and I have worked closely with the SGI team on multiple grassland and nature-centered initiatives over the past four years,” Frist said. “We highly value SGI’s disciplined science-based approach that integrates cultural history and are excited to continue working with SGI to raise the profile of Southeastern grasslands conservation nationally and globally.”

To make the situation even more difficult, Southeastern grasslands began disappearing long before the camera was invented, and have virtually vanished from the collective memory. That means that the existence of Southeastern grasslands and their ecological importance has often been overlooked.

“One of our goals is to give grasslands an equal seat at the conservation table, and I think we’re getting close,” said Dr. Dwayne Estes, co-founder and executive director of SGI. “We’re not there yet, but we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

“Two of our other goals are to work on large-scale grassland conservation projects, and to buy and protect small, unique, grassland remnants that are often overlooked by other conservation organizations,” said Theo Witsell, co-founder and chief ecologist for SGI. “These ancient remnants are the last refuge for some of our most imperiled biodiversity.

“We’re very proud that we are beginning to achieve both goals. We’ve worked on large-scale grassland conservation projects in multiple states, and we are in the final stages of purchasing an approximately 5-acre remnant of a globally rare grassland community,” Witsell continued. “Buying and preserving sites like that is one of the most critical things we can do.”

Looking forward both Estes and Witsell are excited about scaling up SGI’s activities and replicating across the Southeast some of the successes they’ve had at a local level.

“That’s part of why we’re changing our name from the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative to the Southeastern Grasslands Institute,” Estes said. “We feel like we’ve gotten our feet under us and proven that we can do what we set out to do. Now it is time to grow and scale up. For example, we’re about to embark on a 500-acre prairie, savanna, and wetland restoration project 30 minutes outside Nashville, inspired by The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Prairie in Illinois.”

“We are excited to commit 500 acres of our farm to restoring native grasslands, to dreaming with SGI on how to grow that to 10,000 acres in the surrounding region, and helping this great organization scale up to eventually restore 100,000 acres across the Southeast,” said property owner Whitfield Hamilton.

As part of their fifth-anniversary celebration, SGI is having a fundraiser from Oct. 5 through Oct. 19. Their goal is to raise $25,000 for the Robert C. and Deborah B. Hulse Prairie Acquisition Fund which is dedicated to purchasing small, fragile prairie remnants that are often hard to protect through other means because of their size.

If you would like to help SGI make a difference and protect these ancient grasslands, you can make a donation through Austin Peay State University at https://givetoapsu.com/Hulse. All donations are tax deductible.