Zen of the plains: Experiencing Wild Western Places

On a global basis, grasslands along with freshwater bodies are the only two biomes underrepresented in the global set of protected areas established as part of the conservation strategy of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diver- sity, often referred to as the "treaty of life." The tallgrass prairie of Kansas captures the art of this landscape in the form of the complexity and integrity of the ecosystems and the cycle of seasons-elements of time.